


Prologue

by cosmicConundrum



Series: Nationmorphs [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Aliens, Animorphs - Freeform, Crossover, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Okay I lied there's a lot of swearing but that's because of Tony, Political infiltration, Shapeshifting, Spy Missions, Superpowers, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, mild swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicConundrum/pseuds/cosmicConundrum
Summary: When America learns of an alien invasion, Tony offers him technology that will give him the power to turn into any animal so that he can fight the aliens. America gleefully accepts. Little does he know, he and the other nations are about to go on their biggest adventure yet.





	1. Adventure Anew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America finds out aliens are invading the earth.

America was in the middle of playing Call of Duty when the alarm sounded. And, as absorbed as he was, when he heard the alarm (which was more of a siren than an alarm), he jumped approximately three feet in the air and then hit his ankle on the edge of the coffee table. He shrieked a few choice curse words, jumping around on one foot while cradling his injured one with his hands. Shots resounded from the TV. The alarm continued to blare in the background.

He finally recovered a few moments later and calmed down enough to remember what the alarm was for.

Back in the day, when America had first befriended Tony, he had taken the alien home, and the little gray alien had moved into America’s basement. From then on, Tony went on to do great and mysterious things in the confines of The Basement. Most of the time, Tony freaked out whenever America tried to go into the basement. From what America could piece together, it was because of all the high-tech top-secret alien technology Tony had stowed there. And along with all that technology was an alarm that Tony insisted on installing in the rest of the rooms of the house. He said it had something to do with an alarm system for incoming hostile space entities. Whatever that even meant. America had protested, but Tony assured him that it was for his own safety.

He glanced out the living room window and had time to note that it was a sunny and perfect day outside. Nothing unusual.

But yeah. The alarm currently destroying his eardrums as of the present moment signified “incoming space entities.”

America did not have time to question what that meant. Tony’s protocol called for an immediate evacuation of the house into the basement if, and only if, the alarm sounded. He ran to the TV and shut both it and the game console down. Then, he turned around and hightailed it down the stairs. Flashing yellow and red lights swept the stairs and made the whole situation look a lot more serious than it probably was. It was a bit like the scene from those action movies where the main character worked at a secret agency, and the incoming nuclear holocaust was just announced. Still though, the alarms were stupid, and this was really not necessary. America knew nothing was wrong. Ugh. This was pointless. As soon as he got to the bottom of the stairs, he was going to have a talk with Tony about uninstalling those alarms.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, the young man looked up at a giant set of metal and heavily armored doors. Exactly like a scene out of a movie. The main character would go down to the secret lab of the secret agency. So apparently America was a movie character now? Sheesh. What the heck was Tony even doing in there?

The bulky latch between the doors unlocked itself. Steam seeped out from between the doors as they slid apart, slowly, slowly. Any moment now.

America stepped in to a white laboratory so spotless and _white_ that it hurt his eyes. Machines and weird gadgets littered the floor and the walls and even the ceiling. As he walked, America passed by a small rotating arm that seemed to be made out of some sort of plastic sorting through a bin of… were those jelly beans? The plastic arm made a whirring sound as it twisted around to pick through the candy. America wondered what the purpose of this arm even was (as he noticed that all the green jelly beans were being separated from the rest). He continued to stand there, inspecting the machine with curiosity and a little confusion, when he heard a loud clang from behind him. He whipped around in time to see a tile on the floor in front of him split in half, the halves moving to the side, and then Tony, sitting in a small leather chair, ascend from the darkness. America was no longer sure he _wasn’t_ in a movie.

“Hey, Tony! What’s up with all of this?” America asked, flailing an arm around as he attempted to gesture at all of the gadgets at once.

Tony stared at America, or at least America thought he did. He was never sure where Tony was actually looking at, because Tony didn’t really have pupils. Or maybe he didn’t have scleras. Or maybe Tony didn’t need pupils/scleras to see everything at once. America had certainly never asked Tony about his weird alien biology. It wouldn’t surprise him if he found out Tony was secretly omniscient and knew everything, including the secrets of the universe. Perhaps he should ask Tony one day.

“Alarm is on.”

“Yes, I know the alarm is on. But why?” America asked, quickly growing frustrated.

“There are incoming space entities,” Tony replied, as if it made perfect sense and America was smart enough to understand what he meant (which was ridiculous, because America really wasn’t).

“Okay, but what does that mean?”

“It means aliens have invaded Earth,” Tony said, perfectly calm.

“Oh.”

America scratched his head in confusion. Why did Tony have to set up an alarm for something as trivial as that? Tony was already an alien. America thought that Tony probably wouldn’t really care if other aliens invaded earth, as long as he still got to play his video games. Tony didn’t really care about anything except video games. But. Maybe there were other aliens too, and Tony didn’t like them or something. Maybe Tony was a good alien, and other aliens were bad aliens. But America remembered he had glanced out the window earlier, and he hadn’t seen any UFOs shooting lasers and blowing up farms or whatever.

“The Yeerks are here,” Tony said, again perfectly calm.

“Wait, what are those?” America asked, then decided to take a seat on the leather chair that had somehow appeared behind him when he wasn’t looking.

“They are a parasitic species. They look like slugs. They enter your brain through your ear and control you--”

“Whoa whoa, slow down!” America yelled, waving his hands around wildly. Why was Tony so direct today? (Okay, Tony was pretty direct all the time, but this was pushing it.)

“Listen you fuck. Yeerks are a parasitic species. They look like Earth slugs. They need a host body to perform actions since they cannot do anything as slugs,” Tony paused and looked at America to see if he had absorbed all of that, then continued, “They have already come to Earth. They are taking humans as hosts. I did not realize this sooner.”

“Um…” America could not understand, “There are slugs taking over people’s brains? What?”

“Fuck you. You fucking idiot. Come here.” Tony said, grabbing what looked like a shiny white biker’s helmet with various wires strewn across it from the nearby table.

“What? What is that?” America asked.

“It is a thought transferrer. I made it. You will understand what I am saying. Now fucking put this on,” Tony said, and handed the helmet to America.

America looked at it with a bit of fear (after all, his experiences with Tony’s technology in the past haven’t been too pleasant), then decided, “fuck it,” and put it on. When he looked back at Tony, he saw that the alien was wearing an almost identical helmet, complete with all the wires and everything. Then, Tony flicked a switch on the side of his helmet, and suddenly America understood everything.

The room seemed to disappear for a moment. It was as if America was floating around in empty, black space. He flailed around for a moment, trying to see if he had accidentally been teleported or something, when Tony’s voice boomed through the empty space.

“Stop fucking struggling. You are seeing my mind and my thoughts. I will show you since you cannot understand because you are a fuck.”

The dark space lightened up, and all America saw was a single, small, grayish-green slug-like thing floating in the semi-darkness. Tony’s thoughts stopped booming around him, and instead seemed to resonate within his own head. Their thoughts simultaneously became one. The slug was indeed a “Yeerk”. They were an alien species, though obviously not the same species as Tony. Tony’s thoughts told America nothing of his own species’ origins, but Tony did helpfully tell America that Yeerks were bad. BAD bad. The little slug looked completely defenseless, wriggling around in the empty space. America thought that it would be almost like a regular slug in terms of ability to do stuff. He didn’t really see how it could be so dangerous...

The Yeerk could not do anything, but it did have parasitic abilities. At this point, the image of a man appeared in the darkness, and all of a sudden, the Yeerk was on the person’s ear. America watched with his metaphysically nonpresent eyes in horror as the slug creature slithered into the person’s ear, and then he could suddenly see the inside of the person’s head. He saw the Yeerk crawl through the poor guy’s inner ear, pushing flesh out of the way, until it reached the brain. There, it began to flatten itself like it was putty, until it seeped into all the crevices of the person’s brain and completely enveloped it with its own body. At this point America knew that the person was being mind controlled. Tony’s (or was it his own) thoughts told him that at this point, the person was called a Controller.

And then America saw a city, and he saw people walking around like any other normal day, but in Tony’s mind’s eye, he knew that the Controllers were everywhere. There were many of them. Already at this point, several important authority figures all around the world were being mind-controlled, and America somehow knew through Tony’s thoughts that more were being converted every day. They hadn’t been able to take over enough humans to take over the planet, Tony supplied, but they would continue until they did. At that point, there was no telling what would happen. Tony told America that in his space travels, he had, at one point, run into the Yeerks, but was able to escape unharmed because they couldn’t get to his brain and because he was too “fucking awesome”. He had since then tracked their activities as an outsider, for many years.

America began to despair at this, but Tony’s urgent thoughts told him to “shut the fuck up, because he wasn’t fucking done yet.”

There was another alien species, the Andalites. One such alien appeared. It was covered in blue fur from end to end, and looked somewhat like a centaur, with a human half and a horse-ish half. The Andalite had a long, thick tail with what could only be described as a sharp-looking, curved blade at the end of it. America suddenly knew without a doubt that the tail was often used as a weapon and could even cut through metal. The Andalite had hooves, like a horse, as well as hands like a human. It’s face was a little different, however. It did not have a mouth. It did have regular human-like eyes, as well as ears, which were pointed, but similar enough. The most unusual thing about the Andalites, America thought, was that it had two additional eyes sitting on stalks extending from the top of its head. The stalks were flexible and could move around, allowing the Andalite to look anywhere around itself without actually having to turn around. 360 vision, baby.

America wondered why this additional piece of information was important, but Tony told him to shut up and continued the thought-flow process.

The Andalites were fighting the Yeerks in a war (America’s simple brain took time to note the fact: Andalites = Good, Yeerks = Bad). At one point, in a desperate attempt at trying to make a weapon that would help them in the war, an Andalite scientist created technology that would allow any creature to gain the ability to shapeshift into other creatures, as long as a sufficient DNA sample was obtained. This technology was meant to help with the ongoing war with the Yeerks, as it would give the Andalites a huge advantage. It wasn’t very widespread yet, but those that already had it proved to be very efficient at fighting.

 _Well, that was good, wasn’t it?_ America wondered if he would be able to get this ability. Tony’s inherent thoughts told him that he could, and that Tony himself possessed the technology that would allow America to do so.

America started having a (joy-induced) mental breakdown at this.

With that, the weird cross-linked thought-sharing helmet thing stopped working, and America found himself in the chair in the white laboratory with a helmet on his head once more. Tony gave the go ahead signal to take off his helmet, and so he did.

“You understand?” Tony asked.

“Kind of,” America admitted, “But about that technology to turn into animals…”

Tony nodded and took his own helmet off. About two seconds passed before the alien turned around and grabbed what looked like a glowing blue cube off the table, about half a foot tall and just as wide. America couldn’t quite describe the material it was made out of… though it almost looked like it was an opaque, smoky glass.

“You must touch this. It will give you power. I met an Andalite who gave it to me.”

“Huh?”

“Touch. The fucking. Box.”

“Okay, okay! Sheesh!”

And with that, America hesitantly lifted a hand before resting two fingers on the side of the box. He lingered there for a moment. Nothing special seemed to happen, though he could have sworn he felt a slight tingling sensation traveling through the cube, into his fingers, and up his arm.

“It is done. You have the power,” Tony stated, pulling the cube away and depositing it on the table.

America stared down at his upturned hand, wondering what had changed. Besides the odd tingling, he was still exactly the same.

“So can I turn into animals now? That’s so cool! I wanna be a bird! Wait, no! I wanna be a dinosaur!” America exclaimed, already wild with the ideas of what he could do. He had never actually used any of Tony’s cool technology before.

“No. You must collect a DNA sample from the animal you want to turn into. You do this by touching it like you did with the box. The DNA will be absorbed through skin contact,,” Tony said matter-of-factly.

“So I have to touch an animal, right? Does it have to be an animal? What about a bug? Or a plant? What about you?” America wondered.

“Okay, fucking fine. You can have my DNA.”

America cheered by raising two fists in the air, then slapped a hand on Tony’s arm (and received what was probably a glare from Tony’s pupiless/scleraless eyes). A moment later, he removed his arm and decided that nothing felt different. Was that it? Had he done it?

“Now what?” America held up his hands and looked down, turning around in circles to see if he had changed into Tony. Apparently not. Darn.

“You fucking fuck. You fucking think about turning into me.”

“Oh! Okay!”

America scrunched his eyes shut and concentrated all of his willpower on becoming Tony. He imagined himself turning into Tony the same way something straight out of one of his awesome, high quality sci-fi movies would. He felt his skin prickle a little, before he definitely heard his bones creak. When he opened his eyes again, he was changing. His skin became a medium gray, as his bones snapped and moved around to form Tony’s skeleton. The whole process was a bit disorienting, if not downright terrifying. Luckily, it didn’t hurt at all. If it did, it would have been a form of pain too intense to experience and survive, even for a nation. America continued to shrink, growing shorter and shorter until he was at eye level with the arm of the leather chair. Then, he stopped changing. The loud creaking of his bones gave way to silence. America noticed that his vision had shifted, so that now everything was shimmering and an assortment of colors from pink to orange to green to blue, the way that oil on water shimmered in all colors of the rainbow.

He held up his hands and kicked his feet around a little and discovered that they had become tiny alien-limbs. America’s clothes lay in a rumpled pile at his feet; he must have shed them while shrinking.

He turned around to face the actual Tony, who was staring back at him from the chair.

America decided to test out his voice.

“I think it worked!” He declared, and noticed that his voice was an exact mirror of the real Tony’s, all high-pitched and stuff. He was like a clone. This was so cool!

“Yes. It fucking did. You are welcome.” Tony said.

“Is there anything else I should know?” America, as Tony, asked, flexing his little Tony-esque gray fingers.

“Oh wait. Yes. There is. You can communicate via thought-speak. Just think your thoughts and direct them at someone. Like me. Try it.”

America tried closing his eyes so he could concentrate better, but found that Tony apparently did not have eyelids (at least he learned something knew about his friend’s biology). Instead, he stared at the real Tony and thought, “Testing, testing, 123,” and imagined he was brain-broadcasting them. If that was even a thing. Apparently it was.

<Testing, testing, 123.>

“It worked. Fucking good.”

<It did! Wait, did it? Is what I’m thinking right now “thought-speak?”>

“Yes, it is. I can hear it. Fucking duh. That is why I am speaking to you.”

<I see. Welp. This has been fun. Can I change back?>

“Yes you can. Just think about turning back into your fucking self,” Tony said, tapping a finger on the chair impatiently.

America nodded, then imagined turning back into himself. As predicted, his bones started creaking again, before he felt himself shoot up from the ground, his fingers thicken and move around on his hand before settling into their usual spots, his skin gaining its usual tan color, as well as his hair sprouting on his head. Within about half a minute, he was done.

America held up his arms, and looked down at his feet to make sure he hadn’t accidentally retained some part of his Tony form, and instead realized that he was no longer wearing clothes. He yelped in surprise, then quickly grabbed his clothes off the floor and began frantically putting them on.

Tony had absolutely no reaction whatsoever to his nakedness. Maybe it was because Tony was also naked by default, or maybe Tony’s species’ culture didn’t have a need for clothes (the same way that Tony lacked a verbal filter. The alien swore even more than England did).

After ensuring that he was adequately covered, America regained his excitement at having cool powers, and turned to exclaim loud, obnoxious things to his friend.

“That was awesome!” He declared triumphantly, “I wonder what other animals I can turn into. Wait a minute, what about an eagle? Oh my god, that would be so cool! I’m going to go run down to the national zoo real quick to get some nice bald eagle DNA. Be right back!”

And with that, he turned and prepared to run to out of the laboratory, to his car, and drive all the way to the zoo, which would be only about ten minutes away if he drived at 120 mph. Unfortunately, he was stopped mid-step by Tony, who had somehow acquired a stick and had almost tripped the nation when he held it in front of his shins.

“No. Stop being a fuck. I have one more thing to tell you,” Tony said, expressionless but clearly annoyed (though Tony was always annoyed, it seemed).

“Hmm? What is it?” America asked, genuinely curious.

“There is a rule. You can never stay in another form for more than two hours. If you pass that time limit, you will be trapped in that form forever,” Tony said, suddenly sounding very sad. It was almost as if he knew what it was like…

“Oh,” America whispered, “Well, I’ll be sure not to do that. I wouldn’t want to lose my awesome hero self, after all!”

America tried turning around again, but he was stopped by the stick a second time. He grudgingly turned around to listen to whatever Tony had to say.

“Before you get too fucking excited fighting evil aliens, you should learn morphing ability first. Then, experience will help in battle,” Tony said.

“So have fun first, fight evil later?” America asked, grinning.

“Yes. When you know how to morph, come back and I will tell you the rest. Having fucking fun.”

And that was all Tony said to America after that. The excited nation turned tail and ran out the metal laboratory doors, up the stairs, through the house, out the front door, into his car, and drove at exactly 120 mph for ten minutes and got to the National Zoo. He could not be stopped. He was on a quest for eagle DNA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, Animorphs was actually my very, very first fandom. Back in 2012.
> 
> Man, that was a wild time. I've gone through several fandoms since that time, and now I'm on Hetalia. And then one day I was reflecting on my old and new fandoms, and suddenly I wondered what it would be like to give the nations that shapeshifting ability from the Animorphs series. And lo and behold, you have personifications with superpowers. 
> 
> This fic in particular is meant to be the prologue to a much longer series. Instead of one long fic with multiple chapters, it will be a series of oneshots or shorter fics occurring at different times along the story. Or maybe it won't. I don't really know. This first fic is pairing neutral and is more of an introduction. But trust me, the fics will only get more and more pairing-heavy as time goes on. 
> 
> You do not need to know about the animorphs series to read and understand this fic. You do not need to read the various fics in the series in order, or even all of them, either. But it is highly recommended you read the first fic (this one) because it sort of explains the plot background for all the others which are set to soon be published. 
> 
> Enjoy, because I sure did!


	2. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America acquires bald eagle DNA and crashes a world meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two is up! It was written at the fastest speed at which I have ever written the next chapter of a fanfic in high quality, ever. I hope y'all appreciate it. I'm so high on the _exhilaration_ of Animorphs that I can't even. I just. I can't.

“Alfred, you say?” The burly security guard asked, raising an eyebrow at the young man.

“Yep! The one and only Alfred F. Jones, at your service!” America exclaimed loudly, smiling his oh-so-bright smile and offering an outstretched hand.

“I see. That changes nothing. I can’t let you into the bird of prey enclosure,” The guard said in the exact same tone as before, and did not make a move to accept the handshake.

America frowned. He had not expected this to happen.

“Why not?” He ventured.

The guard opened his mouth like he was about to say something, paused, closed his mouth, opened it again, then closed it once more. After failing to say anything for the third time, he just facepalmed and rolled his eyes, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “please let it not be another one of those…” under his breath.

America continued to regard the older man with the best pout he could muster. He figured that his usual strategy -- looking as innocent and harmless as possible -- would work. But it seemed that maybe, just maybe, this was a person who did not believe in the innocence and harmlessness of almost-teenagers. “Alfred” was only nineteen, after all. And security guards usually had too much experience with turning down people who wanted to get into the enclosures, probably.

“So, can I--”

“No.”

 _Darn,_ America thought. Now what was he supposed to do? Knock the man unconscious and sneak into the enclosure anyway? That would just cause a lot of unnecessary drama, no matter how cool it would make him look. He sighed. There were times when his awesome super strength really couldn’t come in handy.

It was very unfortunate indeed that his far-reaching influence (as he had the status of a nation’s personification, after all) had not penetrated the depths of the National Zoo security center, or whatever/whoever even managed the employment of security guards at zoos. Perhaps, though, he could call in someone did actually know him for who he really was.

America smirked. Being a personification sometimes came in handy, especially when one desired to break into a zoo enclosure and briefly encounter an eagle.

America pulled out his handy phone (the newest model, of course), and dialed his team of scientists at the White House.

“Hello?” He said into the phone.

“Alfred, is that you?”

“Yeah! Hey there!” America boomed, and if he wasn’t as oblivious as he was, he would have noticed what was probably the sound of delicate glass aquariums shattering in the distance, or some other large-scale natural disaster caused by his sheer volume.

The scientist on the other line merely held the phone as far away from his ear as possible while still being able to hear what Alfred said.

“What do you need this time?” He demanded in the most polite manner he could muster while talking to an immature teenager and working on the next top-secret invisibility technology project at the same time.

“I need you to grant me access to the bird of prey enclosure at the National Zoo.”

Silence.

“You’re kidding, right?” The man on the other end of the line groaned.

“Have you ever known me to kid about something like this?”

“Well… no.”

“Exactly.”

The scientist rolled his eyes as much as he could again, before turning to his fellow coworkers and giving them a look that said everything. _Should I do it?_ He mentally wondered. His coworkers nodded slowly, hesitantly. It wasn’t like they would be able to stop Alfred once he got his eyes on some far-fetched goal, anyway. He might as well give in to the pressure before Alfred tried something ridiculously stupid to get into the closure anyway that would get him into some pretty deep trouble and require another round of secret service agents and result in a lot of conspiracy theories. The scientist shuddered at the memory. He did not want a repeat of _that_ incident.

“Very well. I’ll contact the security center,” The man said.

“Sweet!” America yelled and shook his fist in victory.

It was not a moment later that the security guard, who had been staring America down the whole time he made his call, got an order to open the enclosure entrance from his walkie-talkie. America smiled to himself. It helped to have influence.

The man pulled out a giant ring of keys with something like forty or fifty keys on it, fished through the many keys, selected one, and stuck it in the equally giant keyhole on the lock on the door. He glared at America while he turned the key with one hand.

“If you do something stupid, don’t expect to be welcome here anymore,” The guard snarled.

America merely flashed the man one of his charming grins, waited for the door to open, and strode inside like he owned the world.

It was rather dark in the enclosure -- a key signature of a closed display. America supposed that he was lucky that the zoo was closed when he had gotten here, otherwise he would have had to brave his way through groups and groups of little kids on field trips, families in bad moods, and tourists from everywhere from Australia to Greenland. Another perk of the zoo being closed was that America had the complete privacy to do as he pleased. While he looked around and up at the glass skylights letting in barely enough light to illuminate the whole chamber, the door slammed shut behind him with a loud BANG. He was on his own now, in the bird of prey enclosure.

A small part of his mind hoped that his amazing charm still worked on animals. A different but equally small part of his mind got slightly nervous at the thought of being attacked by the animals.

America shaded his eyes from the glaring sun with one hand and looked up again. On his second scrutiny of the enclosure, he could clearly recognize several plumed figures sitting on a high branch maybe twenty feet above him. All of them were eagles of some sort, he was sure. And there, that one on the very right, was the bald eagle he had been looking for. He whooped in joy.

Now, how to convince the eagle to come down…

“Um, do you mind maybe flying down here for a moment? I just need to take a sample of your DNA,” he tried saying to the oblivious bird.

The eagle lowered its head, glared down at him, dismissed the puny human as not important, and kept on with its eagle duties.

America groaned. It looked like he would have to do this the hard way.

The eagles were sitting on the branch of a tall, fake tree. But it looked very climbable. America decided he would climb the tree and hopefully make contact with the eagle long enough to absorb the DNA.

He set off towards the tree. In a vain attempt to scale it as fast as possible, he jumped up and wrapped his limbs around the trunk. He slid down a little, and yelped when he thought he was going to fall, but he was fine. America chuckled nervously to himself, and then, slowly, slowly, he shifted up the tree. The eagles continued to pay him no mind. It was only when he got to the top of the tree and was about to crawl across the branch that he realized that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He laughed again, mostly to himself, in a halfhearted attempt to make himself feel better. It didn’t work.

“Might as well try, I think,” he muttered, then swung his way to the branch, and began to crawl along its length towards the birds.

The bird closest to him, which just so happened to be one of the crowned eagles, noticed his incoming, and began squawking loudly in protest. It didn’t help that the eagle also started flapping around wildly, too.

“Don’t do that!” America begged as the branch shook and feathers flew into his face.

The crowned eagle shrieked at him, flapped its great wings once, then took off and landed on a branch across the atrium.

America sighed to himself and continued his treacherous journey across the branch. But by the time he had reached the second eagle, the branch was already very thin. In a miscalculated move, he slipped from the branch and fell. He fell for no more than half a second, but it felt like a moment frozen in time. Like he was falling in slow motion. But he snapped out of his trans-time reverie when he slammed into the ground of the enclosure and sparks erupted before his vision.

America lay there, bright spots dancing before his eyes, dazed. After a full five minutes, he decided it was okay to get up. On getting up, though, he noticed something.

The bald eagle was on the ground, next to him.

Since when had it gotten there?

“So, uh,” America began, paused to wince when his back started hurting, and continued, “Hi there.”

The bald eagle merely squawked at him, but made no move to fly away and mock him for his efforts. America then wondered if he would be able to achieve his goal after all…

“I don’t know if you can, like, understand me and all, but if you can, I just need to pet you real quick, and then I’ll stop bothering you, I promise,” he tried.

The eagle cocked its head at him.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” America grumbled.

Over the next five minutes, he held a palm out at the eagle and slowly, slowly scooted towards it, at roughly the same pace one would scoot if they were trying to tame a dragon or some other untameable mythological creature. When he finally got close enough to the eagle, he was surprised by the eagle resting its head in his outstretched hand. Heh. So maybe that wasn’t so hard.

America closed his eyes and imagined a strand of DNA being absorbed by his skin, probably to be stored away in his bloodstream for when he needed to call it up to morph. But for now, his mission had been a success, and he needed to leave before one of the vulture-looking eagles began to look at him as more than a nuisance.

“Thank you,” he told the eagle as he got up and turned around to leave.

The eagle squawked at him once more, then flapped its wings, sending dirt and leaves and a huge gust of wind his way, before taking off and settling into the canopy branches once more.

America found that the door was mysteriously unlocked. He left the enclosure with a sigh of relief and not a single word.

 

* * *

 

The blond post-teen looked down at the phone resting on top of a precariously high pile of paperwork he was carrying, and realized, in that instant, that he was exactly half an hour late to the meeting.

 _Well shit,_ he thought.

Then again, when had America ever gone to a meeting on time? It wouldn’t be any different today. And besides, what he was going to show to all the other nations was so awesome it would definitely make up for his tardiness. Definitely. As long as a certain other nation didn’t bash his skull in first. America gulped at the thought of an angry England. The last time he had been late, the nation’s reaction hadn’t been too pleasant.

One would think that America had grown used to being yelled at by the older nation after going through that experience so often… and yet America still jumped or got startled sometimes. In the end, though, he would always laugh it off after every time.

America looked down at his phone again and realized he was now _over_ half an hour late to the meeting.

The world summit meeting building was always large and grandiose. America did not stop to marvel at the high-ceilinged hallways, nor did he stop to greet any of the security staff patrolling the hallways. He was on another mission. One that would singlehandedly make him, as well as everyone else, the true heros of the world.

 _One more hallway to go_ , he thought to himself as he rounded the last corner.

The nations that had been more or less peacefully sitting around the large circular table were all startled when the doors of the room exploded inward. And there was America, followed by a flurry of papers that cascaded around him like cherry blossoms in a generic anime episode.

America started his walk to the center of the room. In fact, he walked right past his assigned seat and kept on going.

“America, what are you doing?” Russia asked.

America did not answer. Instead, he stopped at the middle of the table, and then, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, leapt up onto the table and strode to the center. His movements were followed by collective eyerolling and sighs.

“Please take a seat!” Germany snapped, finally losing his patience.

“Wait! I have something super important that I need to tell everyone!” America declared, throwing the remaining papers onto the table and waving his hands around wildly. “It’s super, super important, I promise!”

“Oh dear lord,” England muttered from somewhere off to the side.

“No, seriously, guys! The world is in danger!” America yelled again, and flapped his arms a few more times for emphasis.

“From what? Aliens?” Prussia retorted.

“Actually, yes! Wait, how did you know that? You’re not one of them, are you… wait, nevermind, you can’t be. And why are you here anyways? You don’t even have a nation to run,” America said, before realizing he had gone off a tangent and added, “Anyways, yes, you’re right. The earth is being invaded by aliens,” America said.

Once again, everyone except America groaned and rolled their eyes.

“No, seriously! I’m not joking this time! I have proof! And furthermore, we have this technology from aliens, but they’re different aliens, the good aliens, that can help us defeat the bad aliens,” America said, then paused to look around to see if anyone was following him, “Do y’all understand me?”

“No. We do not understand what you are saying,” Germany said, slowly, enunciating each and every syllable like he was talking to a five-year old.

“Oh. Well then, I guess I’ll just have to do a better job of explaining what is going on!” America laughed.

“America, either say something that’s actually relevant, or get off the table and stop making a fool of yourself!” England yelled, slamming a hand down on the tabletop. And America thought he heard the older nation mutter something that sounded suspiciously like “not that you’re ever _not_ making a fool of yourself,” under his breath.

“Wait, wait! I can prove this to you!” America said.

Then he proceeded to pull out his briefcase, which had originally been tucked under his arm and was now at his feet. He opened the briefcase, and the resulting click could be heard echoing throughout the otherwise silent room.

There, sitting smack in the middle of the briefcase, was the blue morphing cube.

America picked up the cube as gently as possible (which wasn’t all that gently, considering his inhuman strength). It may have been his imagination, but the cube seemed to glow a little more brightly upon contact.

“Now, what is that?” France mused, cocking an eyebrow at the cube in America’s hands.

Well, best to be blunt about this. “It’s a piece of alien technology that will give you the power to turn into any animal,” America said.

“If this is a prank, I hope you know that we aren’t that stupid,” China said.

“It’s not a prank. I’m serious.”

“This is it,” England announced, “He’s finally gone off the deep end.”

America frowned. He hadn’t imagined that this exchange would take a turn for the worse. In his head, he had pictured himself, the hero, explaining everything perfectly and logically, and everyone else listening and understanding, and then everyone would go off and fight aliens and save the day. He was a hero, goddammit!

“I don’t know how to say this,” he finally admitted.

The other nations stopped with their side comments as soon as they noticed America’s voice drop drastically in volume (after all, it was almost unknown that that was even possible).

“So I guess I’ll just have to demonstrate it to you,” America concluded.

He crouched down on the polished table, and dropped the cube back into the briefcase. Then, he closed his eyes, and pictured something he had pictured almost every day of his life.

He saw a great brown bird with white head feathers soaring through the sky. He imagined the majestic calls the bird would make. He imagined the sun silhouetted against its back. He imagined it soaring over canyons, mountains, deserts, and plains. And he pictured himself in the center of all that grace and wonder. He had to embrace the eagle. He had to feel the eagle. He had to _be_ the eagle.

It was no wonder that all the nations in the room reacted rather hysterically when not a moment later, the crazy nation that had just been ranting about aliens and magic powers began to grow feathers and shrink.

“What the hell is going on?” China shrieked along with a chorus of screaming and confused yelps.

America tuned out the louder nations (who were quite hysterical) and focused on morphing. He had a feeling that if he didn’t fully concentrate, something weird would happen, like maybe he wouldn’t finish morphing and would be stop midway as a half-human, half-bird mutant freak, and he _really_ wasn’t about that. But as he closed his eyes and felt himself grow smaller and smaller, felt the clothes he had been wearing cover him, felt the tiny hairs all over his body thicken and merge together to become feathers, felt his glasses disappear, felt his mouth harden into a beak, and as he finally opened his eyes, he was overcome with the sheer awesomeness that came with being a bird.

First off, he had eyesight better than he could ever hope to have as a human (not that he was a human), even with his glasses. He could see every single minute detail in the room, and even beyond, to the world outside. He swore he saw a squirrel scurrying across a tree more than half a mile away from the window. When America looked as excitedly as possible at the nations around him, he could see individual hairs popping out at him. He could see pores. When America turned to England, he tried not to mentally laugh at just how much more prominent the nation’s eyebrows appeared now.

That was when America noticed the overwhelming silence.

When had the hysterical screaming turned into silence? Well, he obviously had not been paying attention.

<Uh, guys. Is everything okay?> He asked.

The answer he got was every single person in the room jumping at least two feet in the air, followed by more collective yelps. America wanted to roll his eyes.

“D-did that bird just talk?” Italy asked from somewhere behind America.

“I… think it did,” Germany said, slowly, and sounded like he was suspended in a state of utter disbelief.

“What just happened?” China demanded.

<Come on guys! I turned into a bald eagle!> America said, and hopped from one foot to the other for emphasis.

America was confused when everyone just… kept on staring at him. Like he had grown a second head, instead of simply growing feathers and turning into an eagle. Like there was something wrong.

<Is… is something wrong?> He asked, and cocked his little bird head.

“Hang on a second, let’s rethink this whole situation,” England said, holding two hands out with his palms facing America, and closing his eyes, like he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe what had just happened, before continuing with, “Did America just turn into a bird?”

<Specifically a bald eagle. But yeah,> America said.

England opened his eyes, stared at America for a few seconds, closed his eyes, opened them again a moment later, and kept on staring.

“How is this possible?” Germany muttered under his breath.

<Well, see, if you guys had been listening to my explanation earlier, you would have understood. But nope, none of you even paid attention to my awesome speech. Now I have to explain the whole thing all over again.>

“Do explain,” Japan piped up, and America vaguely registered it was the first time the nation had said anything that day.

America wriggled his way out of the clothes that had become bundled around his bird form, and shuffled over to his briefcase, where the blue morphing cube sat. He turned around and scanned the room to make sure everyone was listening before he began.

<So it turns out there are evil aliens who are invading the earth…>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for the next chapter to contain a lot of freaking out and flying.


	3. First Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America gives the other nations the morphing ability, and then they all go flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has to be one of my favorite chapters of this fic. Keep in mind that when I finish this fic, there will be more fics to come in the series taking place in this universe... one of which is a very, very USUK fic in which America and England go out flying. Together. It's super cute. I haven't published that fic yet, but when I do... you should really read it.
> 
> One more thing. I think what I'll be doing for future chapters is suggesting background music for that chapter. As of this chapter, I have nothing to suggest, but keep that in mind for those future chapters!

It was a solid twenty minutes later that America finally finished explaining the situation to his fellow nations. When he stopped, everyone continued to look at him like he was utterly crazy. But, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t really blame them. If he had somehow been able to travel back in time and tell his past self that he would be talking to the others about evil alien conquerors while in the form of a bird speaking through thoughts, he would have no doubt called himself crazy. So he supposed he couldn’t really judge Italy when the nation suddenly and inexplicably fainted.

Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

<Uh… is he okay?> America asked.

Germany took one look at the unconscious nation on the floor and sighed.

“He’s fine.”

And that was all that was said.

“So, America, about this morphing technology…” Russia began.

America shot his best glare (that he could shoot as a bird that was kind of permanently glaring anyway) at the nation, and chose to ignore the question as well as the implications that came along with it.

“Is it possible to turn into cats, or other animals with fur?” Japan asked.

America was about to say something, then suddenly paused. Just wait a second. What was Japan asking about this for, anyway? America chose to respond to the question with a simple look. He would have raised an eyebrow, too, if not for the bald eagle’s obvious lack of eyebrows.

<Well, now that we’ve gotten everything settled, I think it is time for me to grant this awesome power to all of you!> America finally said. The nations around him gaped. Some of them had their mouths hanging open, almost comically.

And then America was bombarded with more questions.

“Does it hurt?”

“Is it possible to change back?”

“Can I turn into a phoenix?”

<No, it does not hurt. But it does sound kind of weird. Yes, it is possible to change back. No, you can’t turn into a phoenix. The technology only lets you turn into animals you can get a DNA sample for. Which sucks, because I was totally going to turn into a dinosaur, but then I couldn’t.>

“Well fuck.”

<So, any more questions? No? Well, prepare to have your mind blown.>

America hopped next to the suitcase, did his best to close his bird eyes, and pictured himself changing back. The process proceeded somewhat smoothly, though America could definitely do without the cracking and squishing noises that came along (ugh, the sounds were downright creepy). When he was about halfway done with morphing, he remembered what had happened with Tony. A mental image of himself standing naked in front of all his fellow nations was enough to make him pause mid-morph.

“Oh dear. Is something wrong?” Germany asked, and America’s disfigured, not-fully-formed-yet human ears vaguely made out the worry in his voice.

“Ib phine!” America tried to say through his half mouth, half beak.

Luckily, America had not been a complete idiot and had come somewhat prepared to the meeting. He had thrown a towel and a spare change of more comfortable clothes -- a t-shirt, jeans, and normal socks -- into his suitcase, and it looked like he would need those now. With fumbling, feathered hands, he picked up the towel and wrapped it around himself. Then he closed his eyes once more and continued demorphing.

When he was finally finished, he was still completely naked, except for the towel wrapped around his waist. America felt his face began to heat up, and he willed the blush to go down. At least he didn’t _not_ have a towel.

“A-anyways, I’m going to give you guys the morphing power,” He stammered, and hopped off the table while securing the towel around his waist with one hand.

America leaned back over the table and grabbed the blue cube from the suitcase with his one free hand. Before he made any other movements, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was it. Everyone would forever be changed from this moment on.

He opened his eyes, and settled on the nation closest to him -- Japan. America approached Japan with the cube in his hand.

“So you just have to touch the cube, okay? It gives you the morphing power,” He explained, and held out the cube for the other nation.

Japan seemed intent on only looking directly at America’s face. America instantly felt a wave of guilt crash into him. He had kind of forgotten about his indecent exposure.

Japan averted his eyes, and looked down at the cube, which he then touched lightly with two fingers. A second later, he stepped back.

“Am I done?” He asked.

“Yep!”

America then moved on to the next nation, and the next, and the next, until he had gone around the whole room and everyone was holding up their hands and examining them and generally giving each other looks of confusion. America held the cube in one hand, and the edge of his towel in the other, and looked around the room one last time, before he realized that he had forgotten someone.

England.

America instantly flushed as he made his way to the remaining nation.

England and America stared each other down for a long, long time, during which neither of them made a move to do anything with the cube. America just kept gazing into England’s eyes and didn’t even realize he had gotten lost in their depths when England suddenly coughed into his hand to break the silence and looked away. That was when America noticed the red spread across the other nation’s cheeks. America flushed again and also looked away.

“Are you sure this is safe?” England asked in the silence.

America met England’s gaze once more, and, lacking any comforting words, simply placed the cube into England’s hands, and covered them with his own.

“I honestly don’t know, but we’re all in this together, am I right?” He whispered back.

There was even more silence after that. Neither of the nations noticed just how long they had been standing like that until someone cleared their throat from across the room. Then they both jumped away from one another, blushing heavily, and the cube fell to the floor.

America picked up the cube, walked back to the table, and placed it in the briefcase.

“So, uh, I guess now you guys need a DNA sample,” he began, suddenly a little unsure of himself. Maybe it was because his world had been turned upside down only a few days ago. The fact that aliens were actually invading the earth, and the fact that he and his friends could get the opportunity to become heros… _well_.

Everyone else just continued to stare at him, until America snapped his fingers and muttered, “Oh, right.”

One phone call to a group of very helpful scientists later, the doors of the meeting room slammed open, and a troop of a dozen people dressed in lab coats so white they were nearly blinding flooded into the room. Each person was carrying a little case in their hands. If America had gotten the group to understand his orders correctly, the little cases would contain the various DNA samples.

“Okay, so all of these boxes have a small sample of feathers or hair or whatever from a bunch of birds. You can pick whatever you want to take the DNA sample of. Once you get your chosen DNA sample, touch it with your hands just like you did with the morphing cube, and then you should be all set. When you want to start morphing, just picture yourself turning into the bird,” America concluded his speech with a halfhearted smile, before suddenly realizing something and then adding, “And if you’re wondering, I did not rip out a bunch of feathers from birds! They were shed feathers! Shed feathers!”

A lot of shoving, shuffling, and fighting over metallic boxes and feathers later, everyone seemed to be ready. The scientists departed with their metal boxes out of the meeting room.

“Picture yourself turning into the bird,” America commanded, “You have to imagine the bird. You have to see it in your mind. You have to embrace the bird. You’ve gotta be the bird! You have to see the bird within.”

Everyone closed their eyes. Some people awkwardly flapped their arms. America was about to try explaining again when there was a sudden cracking noise. Scarily enough, Italy, who had stopped being unconscious somewhere between the demorphing and the DNA acquiring, was the first one to figure out how to morph.

Everyone stared at him in equal parts amazement and horror as the brown-haired nation shrunk within his clothes and sprouted feathers. Then, more and more nations followed.

A chorus of thought-speak cries of joy and confusion rang in America’s ears.

America watched with barely-suppressed pride as his fellow nations, now closer to being comrades in arms (not that he liked that term -- it reminded him too much of the sixties) than coworkers. So maybe this whole banding-together-to-save-the-earth-thing-against-evil-alien-brain-conquerors thing could work after all. Who knows? Maybe all it would take to achieve world peace was a nosy species of slug aliens and the magical power of friendship! He deserved a freaking Nobel Peace Prize for this. For once, nobody was fighting.

The last thing America did before he too joined his friends in morphing was open the windows. Wind swept into the room, ruffling his rapidly-disappearing hair and blowing stacks of papers and notebooks astray. A brilliant beam of sun warmed his feathering skin.

And there the world was, literally, converging as a multitude of assorted birds around a lone bald eagle standing in front of a window roaring with the wind of opportunity.

America flapped his great brown wings, and landed on the windowsill. Outside, the wind was much stronger, and the threat of the ground, some sixty feet below, had almost no effect on the rational part of his mind, which should have been telling him that he could die. But somehow he wasn’t afraid. Somehow he was ready. Maybe it was the fact that this was the first time anyone would ever experience something as unknown and as longed for as natural flight. It was one of the things all humans -- and consequently all nations -- had in common. America himself could still remember faint traces of days where he would stare up at the eagles flying overhead and long for the same freedom and power. Or maybe it was the fact that today was a new day. The day their purpose as nations changed forever. The day that some new kind of unspoken worldwide alliance formed, without the need for politicians and promises and words.

<Now what?> Someone’s thought-speak voice asked.

America turned around to face his friends.

<And now, we fly.>

Flying was probably three or four thousand times cooler than America had imagined. Not that he hadn’t ever flown at all before. Of course he had, being a nation with an active air force and a high amount of planes and jets in general. He had been the one to invent the airplane, and he had used it in more wars than he could count. But this was the first time he or any of the other nations had flown according to their own bodies, without the assistance of machines. And to say the least, it was kind of terrifying.

From the very first leap of faith he had taken off the windowsill into empty air, it had been terrifying. To see the ground sixty feet below him, to feel nothing but air keeping him from splatting into the concrete so far below… it was scary. But it had also been exhilarating. For one, he was flying. Flying! His childhood fantasy was becoming reality before his very eyes. The air was miraculously holding him up. He flapped his wings and felt himself moving through the air like an aerodynamic jet. _This is just too cool,_ America thought to himself. Nothing, not even flying in a supersonic jet at speeds faster than sound, could compare to flying as an eagle.

For one, America just felt so darn free. Forget the moment he witnessed the signing of the freaking Declaration of Independence. This was the freest he had ever been in his life.

<Wheee!> He screeched in joy as he soared along on a wind current.

The others followed closely behind him, scrambling to gain an understanding of the physics of bird flight. America supposed it was a rather small miracle that no one hadn’t _not_ figured out how to fly and splatted into a building or the ground.

<This is insane!> Germany also screeched, more in confusion and fear than simple joy. He was the rough-legged buzzard flapping around wildly and managing to stay aloft.

<How do I know how to fly if I’ve never flown before in my life!?> China asked, also flapping his wings around, in his golden eagle form.

<I don’t even know, but I don’t think we should be questioning it,> America responded, too high on exhilaration and _freedom_ to really respond intelligently.

A smaller, more rational part of America’s mind wondered how normal citizens going about their everyday lives would react to seeing a plethora of birds of prey suddenly escape from the sixth story of a building. But the excited, more child-like part of his mind told him to put off the reasoning for later, in favor of enjoying the feeling of the wind and sun on his feathers in the present moment.

A red kite, hen harrier, red-tailed hawk, hobby falcon, black eagle, golden eagle, rough-legged buzzard, osprey, and lammergeier followed the bald eagle. They were not aligned in any sort of flight formation, which was probably for the best, considering humans and those who were infested would not react well to a group of assorted birds flying in military formation.

The group soared over busy streets full of honking cars and shouting people. They soared over tall, concrete buildings that looked like nothing more than small bricks on the ground. They soared over glassy skyscrapers that reached for the clouds. They soared over glistening waters of the Hudson river. They soared over bridges and crowds and highways and more people and boats and giant billboards that advertised everything from underwear to vacations in Hawaii.

In the silence filled with unspoken words, no one dared to speak. Everyone had already figured out how to stay in the air at that point, and no one was willing to complain. America was pretty confident they were experiencing the same euphoria he felt, as they gradually shifted from panicking over not dying to appreciating the art of the wind.

<You know, I never thought that flying could be this cool,> France admitted, breaking the comfortable silence.

<I hate to agree… but I will have to agree,> England muttered.

America let out a loud thought-speak laugh. This was _fun_. He had gotten France and England to actually agree on something. Fuck it, he deserved more than a Nobel Peace Prize. He would probably have to fund some kind of new prize that would only be rewarded to the most heroic of people. He would call it the Super Nobel Peace Prize… or something.

By the time most of the nations had calmed down from their various elevated states of joy, they had already flown halfway across the city. They would not make it back into the meeting room on time. Not that it was important that they get back to the meeting room on time. It looked like they would likely get nothing of political significance done in the next few _weeks_ , let alone hours. America envisioned a close future filled with meetings on combat strategy rather than peace talks. ‘Welp’, America thought to himself, ‘looks like actually saving the world has taken the place of those stupid global trade talks.’

He then noticed that the others had begun to strike up some conversation.

<We should try morphing into other animals!> Prussia exclaimed, <I want to be something large and powerful. Preferably a rhino. Those things can run through anything.>

<I agree. I want to feel the grace and beauty of being a majestic horse!> France said.

<And I want to see if it's possible to biologically engineer dragon DNA!> China said.

This exclamation caught America’s attention as all of his memories of every single science fiction movie ever suddenly flooded his mind. <Oh my god, that would be so cool!>

<Let’s do it! I’ll provide the labor and raw materials!>

<And I’ll get the technology!> He screamed.

When he had calmed down again, America looked out over the beautiful city -- his city. The city that never sleeps. It filled him with pride just to think about it. He now had access to the city’s full beauty through his advanced eyesight and awesome bird’s eye view. Despite the fact that he was always very proud of his cities, he hadn’t ever actually known that they were this cool. Maybe it was the being a bird part that had changed his perspective.

America wondered if he and the others would be able to do fun stuff like this again in the future. _Perhaps_ , he mused, _when we aren’t fighting aliens, we can all morph and have some fun!_ He could see it now: races as horses, races as dolphins, exploring the deep ocean depths as giant squid, racing into the heart of the amazon jungle as monkeys, having duels as moose… the possibilities were literally endless.

<Japan! Do you want to race?> Italy suddenly chimed in., breaking America’s chain of fantasies.

<Uh, sure,> Japan said.

Italy then surprised everyone even further when he glided up above the group, folded his wings, hung in space for a moment, and then, like a bullet, dropped down towards the earth at ridiculously high speeds. If he were a human, America’s mouth would be hanging open.

<That looks fun!> Russia chirped.

<You idiot!> Germany yelled as he watched Italy soar down. But the excited osprey used the momentum from gravity to his advantage and glided up again, and this time, he was several dozen feet ahead of them.

<It’s fun! Come on Japan, or you’ll fall behind!> Italy said, and seemed to be completely unaffected by the death dive he had just taken. He even seemed happier.

Japan hesitated before also diving after Italy, albeit much more slowly.

Soon, others began joining in. Prussia, the black eagle, flapped around wildly before folding his wings to his body and dropping like a stone. When he boomeranged back up towards the others’ altitude, he was shrieking with laughter. Meanwhile, Germany was busy berating Italy for being too careless in his actions, while Italy ignored him. Russia glided along with close to no wing movements. France had found a way to taunt England, who only yelled back. China was experimenting with different flying angles. A lonesome red-tailed hawk that nobody noticed or paid attention to smiled mentally and enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere.

America just laughed during all of the exchanges. He laughed and laughed, and laughed some more, and marvelled at the fact that thought-laughing allowed him to never run out of air, and consequently never stop laughing. Maybe being high on the exhilaration of freedom wasn’t so bad after all!

They returned to the meeting building an hour later. The sun was already low in the sky, and its light cast deep shadows against the sides of all the great skyscrapers. By then, everyone was exhausted, and probably delirious from the flying, but they each made their semi-smooth landings on the windowsill on the sixth floor, before stumbling into the darkness of the room. Once again, a troop of ten birds were standing on the marble floor of a grand room, staring at one another with what could almost be described as smiles. The flying had put everyone into a good mood. America wished he could somehow prolong the moment so that it could last forever. All the nations were… happy, for once. It was an occurrence so rare it deserved its own documentary in the unusual natural phenomena series. America grinned mentally. Perhaps he could call his Super Nobel Peace Prize the Friendship Prize instead.

When America was sure everyone had gathered back, he started demorphing, taking care to do it next to the towel he had used to protect himself from certain scorn earlier. The creaking and shifting of bones and organs was not nearly as unpleasant as it had been at first, now that he had grown somewhat used to it.

The others saw what he was doing, and followed suit. As America looked around, he tried not to make faces at everyone’s weird appearances. A human-bird hybrid would not be pretty, despite what all the fantasy and science fiction books had told him. The nations ranged from humanoid blobs to birds with human legs to feathered torsos with tiny bird feet. America closed his eyes and kept concentrating on morphing himself, in order not to get distracted by the others. It was only when America was almost finished that he suddenly realized something very bad he had completely forgotten about.

“Oh waid! Hou dond ged clothes when you demorph!” He yelled as his voice slowly returned to normal.

Unfortunately, he was far too late. He watched with horror and guilt as all the other nations finished with their demorphing, looked down at themselves, realized that they were naked, and began to panic. Soon, everyone was screaming and hiding themselves behind tables, chairs, and various other objects. America facepalmed with one hand while holding his waist towel with the other.

“My dignity!” China shrieked.

“My image!” Germany added.

“I don’t see the problem,” France, the only one who wasn’t making any attempt at covering himself, said.

Even more unfortunately, America had made the mistake of not bringing towels for the others. He cursed his own stupidity and ignorance. All he could do was avoid looking at anyone while they scrambled around, trying to find the clothes they had been wearing before they morphed.

Of course, when his gaze accidentally fell on England, he immediately felt his face heat up again, if that was even possible. He tried to force his gaze away several times and failed. America didn’t know why he kept looking back to England. It wasn’t as if England was special… or anything. When he realized he had been staring for a good half minute, though, he finally mustered the self control to slap a hand over his eyes (which needed to stop betraying him, dammit).

And then, much, much later, when everyone had finally put their clothes on and the room was devoid of paranoid screaming, he uncovered his eyes.

“You should have warned us earlier,” England snapped as soon as he could.

“I’m sorry,” America mumbled, at a loss for more comforting words. Then his mind helpfully supplied the image of England’s naked backside. He flushed the image from his imagination as smoothly as possible.

Germany was the first to say anything else. He swept the attention of the whole room to himself (although his disheveled clothes did make him look a lot messier than usual).

“We are all going to agree to never bring up what just happened with the ‘demorphing’,” he said.

Everyone nodded solemnly.

France frowned, before whispering, “I wish I had brought a camera to the meeting.”

America glanced up at the clock above the meeting room doors. They were around two hours off schedule. In fact, the meeting should have been ending right then.

“I don’t think we have any time to do anything else,” Prussia added cheerfully as he glanced up at the clock as well.

“Well then, meeting’s over?” Germany asked.

“Meeting’s over,” Japan agreed.

What had to have been the most silent instance to date of the nations packing up and preparing to leave followed.

“So, America, how are we supposed to use this power to fight the aliens?” Russia asked as he laid a stack of papers into his own briefcase.

“I’m not exactly sure,” America admitted, “Tony gave me all this information and the blue cube, and he told me to practice morphing before fighting aliens. So I guess you guys can, like, go to zoos and get some more DNA and stuff. Maybe we’ll make a plan to start with our human resistance movement at the next meeting.”

“Okay,” a soft voice said.

America considered something for a moment, and then added, “You all have to swear one thing, though.”

“What is that?”

“Never, never tell anyone about this power,” and his voice dropped so low he scared even himself. “For all we know, our most powerful politicians could already be infested. And probably keep a lowkey stance when acquiring DNA and morphing, too. I don’t know what will happen if they realize we know about the invasion.”

His message was responded to with slow nods all around.

“Should we maybe sign something for this?” Germany wondered.

“I don’t think that would work,” England responded, “I mean, just imagine all of our bosses’ reactions when we show them some treaty for a worldwide alliance formed to fight aliens.”

“That, and we don’t know if our bosses are infested,” China added.

That ominous thought made the warm and friendly atmosphere drop several degrees in temperature.

“What are we going to do if somebody’s boss _is_ infested?” America asked.

“I don’t know,” Germany said.

“What if other powerful politicians are also infested?” Japan asked.

“This threat is so much bigger than I originally remembered,” America muttered to himself.

A tense moment of silence passed, during which everyone carefully considered just how many people could be Controllers within their countries.

“Are we going to have missions for this?” Canada asked.

“Probably. I don’t see why not,” America said.

“Maybe we can consider scanning all of our bosses so we can see if they are cleared or not on our first mission, then.”

“That is a good idea.”

Another moment of silence. The nations had somehow wound up standing in a circle, and were now shooting each other nervous glances. It couldn’t be possible for a personification to be infested, right? How would that even work? America now began to worry. What if one of his fellow nations was infested? He had just given everyone the morphing power, and revealed that he knew about the invasion. If someone here really did pose a threat to the others, then that person could singlehandedly get all of them captured.

But then America realized that no one was actually infested, because if they were they probably would have reacted differently to receiving the morphing technology. And with that thought, his mind was at peace.

“Anyways, we’ll see each other again in about a week, right?” America asked.

“Yes.”

“Let’s all acquire some other morphs by then, and we’ll all have our own arsenal of morphs. We can plan out our first mission then: surveillance on all of our bosses.”

“Is everyone okay with that?” Germany asked.

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then. We’re probably not going to have a treaty, but who needs treaties anyway?” America laughed. “We’ll do this without words, guys. We’ll do this as friends.”

He held out his hand in the center of the circle of nations. He didn’t really know what he was doing; he had somehow moved without intention. But then, Italy reached his hand out too, and then Japan, and then France, and then everyone else did as well. They had somehow wordlessly all agreed to the same thing. As America glanced down at the world’s hands all together in the center of the circle, he felt an inexplicable burst of joy and pride for humanity as a whole. He smiled. It really was like one of those cliche sweet moments in his movies.

As the meeting formally adjourned, America grabbed his briefcase, with the blue morphing cube and clothes inside, and left the room. He changed into his actual clothes in the nearest bathroom, down at the far end of the hall.

When he opened the door to exit into the hallway, he almost ran into England, of all people.

“Excuse me,” they both said in unison, then looked at one another in shock, then ducked their heads and frantically tried to squeeze past each other.

It did not work out.

“You go first,” England sighed.

“You sure?” America asked. Wait. Since when did he wait for someone else to do something first, instead of charging forward like he always did?

“It’s a door. Just go,” England hissed.

“Okay, okay. Sheesh.”

After walking past England, America made the mistake of looking back, and he met England’s _so very green_ gaze. He was immediately speechless. Damn the other nation’s inexplicable power to stop his train of thought!

“A-anyway,” England began in the silence, “Thank you for sharing that power today.”

“‘Thank you’?” America repeated.

“Yes, thank you. From what I understood of your story, Tony gave you the technology. You didn’t have to share it with us. You could have just run away with it and fought aliens on your own so you could finally live up to that ridiculous hero fantasy of yours. Or perhaps you would have given up on fighting altogether, and spent the power on flying and fooling around,” England explained, looking away.

America was stunned.

“Why wouldn’t I give you guys the power too? Everything’s more fun with friends, especially having a superpower and fighting aliens!” He laughed. _Plus,_ he added to himself, _it was probably the right thing to do, and would benefit the whole world at large._

England hesitated.

“I suppose so.”

“Well, I’ve got to go. Enjoy your new superpower!” America yelled, waved, and left.

If he had turned around, he would have seen England carefully watching him walk down the length of the hallway before disappearing from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading yet another chapter! This fic looks like it'll be a lot longer than predicted. By the way, if you can drop by and add a comment or other feedback, that will be much appreciated!
> 
> Here are some random facts about the fic (including pictures I have helpfully added for reference of the nations' bird morphs. They are not to scale.):
> 
> -The world summits taking place in America usually happen in the UN building in New York, which is why I have them fly over the city as they leave the building  
> -All the nations will soon have their trademark bird morphs that will more or less become their symbol throughout later chapters in the fic as well as other fics in the series.  
> -America is clearly a bald eagle, and the symbolism from that is obvious, so I don't need to explain it.  
>   
> -England is a red kite, a small bird that is endangered in the UK. The symbolism here is that red seems to be a prominent symbolic color for England.  
>   
> -France is a hen harrier. This is a reference to the whole thing with French hens and whatnot.  
>   
> -Canada is a red-tailed hawk, a reference to one of the morphs of the original Animorphs characters.  
>   
> -Japan is a hobby falcon/hawk, and I think I'll let you figure out the connection there (hint: it has something to do with a certain favorite doujinshi artist of mine).  
>   
> -China is a golden eagle. This is because China really likes gold; the color is also prominent on his flag.  
>   
> -Germany is a rough-legged buzzard/hawk, because he's really rough, or something, I don't know I couldn't think of anything symbolically significant for Germany.  
>   
> -Prussia is a black eagle, the same eagle featured on his flag.  
>   
> -Italy is an osprey. Ospreys are fish-eating birds of prey, and I figured since Italy is in the Mediterranean and all... yeah.  
>   
> -Finally, Russia is a bearded vulture, also known as a lammergeier, because the vulture symbolizes death, yadda yadda, and it's cold in Russia, okay.  
>   
> -Lastly, every nation's bird morphs are native or have habitat in those respective nations.


	4. Your Mission, if you Choose to Accept it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America receives information from Tony and then passes it onto his friends. A spy mission is also planned out, and America and Canada will have to team up with one other country they haven't always liked in the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read this far into my fanfic, I would like to take the time to say: thank you! I've worked on his fic a lot and I'm glad people are reading it! Who knew Hetalia and Animorphs would work so well together?

When America was next approached by Tony, he was very prepared for the rundown that was about to happen. He squared off the small gray alien and prepared to be bombarded with language so vulgar it would have made England cringe.

Tony had cornered America when he was in the middle of moving all of his food and gaming equipment into the lab basement thingy. Originally, America had thought that since Tony had established the lab more or less as a stronghold against the evil alien invasion, it would be a safe location to hide out in if the world went to shit. And America, being the logical, smart, prepared person he was, knew that if he was to hide out in a shelter during an intense alien invasion, he needed to be moving all his essential stuff to the basement in order to ensure his survival. And he knew that he couldn’t live without his video games. Or his computer. Or his food.

But, back to the present.

There Tony was, looking as angry as ever, carrying the thought-transferring helmet thingamabob in his hands, and wearing an identical one on his own head.

“I think you have practiced morphing enough. It is time to tell you how to defeat Yeerks.”

America nodded, slowly and solemnly. This was the moment everything would change.

He accepted the helmet and placed it on his head. In an instant, his surroundings disappeared and were replaced by hazy darkness. Tony’s thoughts echoed around his mind once more.

“Yeerks are a parasitic species, correct?”

“Yes?”

“The Controllers may be hard to identify with sight alone, but they do have weakness,” Tony said, and an image of a normal-looking person appeared.

“What is that weakness?”

The person turned transparent enough so that America could now see the slug creature in his brain.

“A Yeerk must exit its host body every three days to feed. Or else it will die.”

The Yeerk slowly left the ear of the person. Next to the Yeerk and person, what almost looked like one of those tiny inflatable kiddie pools appeared. But when America looked into the kiddie pool, he mentally gagged. In the place of water was a weird, almost-gray sludge. As America continued to watch, the image of the Yeerk slid to the ground and entered the pool, where it then swam around.

“The Yeerk does not eat like a human. It absorbs nutrition from Yeerk pools that contain the rays of its home planet’s sun,” Tony’s solemn voice rang out.

America thought about this for a moment, and then, it hit him: The Yeerks had a weakness. They couldn’t stay in their host bodies forever, because then they would starve.

“Every Yeerk must feed. So Yeerks build complexes underground to contain pools. I do not know the location of these complexes. You must find yourself.” Tony said.

America mentally raised an eyebrow at this. Complexes? What kind of complexes?

“Fucking figure it out yourself. I will move on. Now that you know how to defeat the fucking Yeerks, I will provide you additional information that can help.”

The image of the person, the Yeerk, and the pool disappeared.

“Yeerks have already infested many species before they began Earth conquest,” Tony began again, and America marveled at the low ratio of swears to actual words.

An image of a giant… reptilian creature appeared. Reptilian was the only word America could really come up for describing it, other than probably dangerous. It was tall, too tall, taller than the tallest human could ever hope to be. It looked kind of like a dinosaur, but almost humanoid. Its skin was a deep green color, like spruce needles in a forest. Darn, America thought, he really needed to work on his description skills. The alien’s mouth was actually a beak and not too different from the beaks of birds of prey. It had a long but muscular snake-like neck, two eyes, two arms, two legs, and a tail. But the most surprising part of the creature was its knack for apparently growing horns. It had three giant, sharp horn-blades that raked forward on the back of its neck, as well as at its elbows, shoulders, ankles, back, and along its long tail. America suddenly had no doubt that those blades could be used as weapons, and he wasn’t eager to find out what they could cut through.

“You’re fucking scared.”

“Am not!”

“Yes you are.”

America couldn’t really say something clever and witty back because it was true.

“No worries. There are more alien Controller species. The one you just saw is Hork-Bajir. It is peaceful species, but enslaved by Yeerks. Next is Taxxon.”

The image of the dinosaur-alien disappeared and was replaced with something infinitely worse. Upon first sight, America wasn’t sure if he should have been scared or outright disgusted.

The creature was like a giant centipede. Its body was a medium tan color, like the color of paper bags. It had dozens, if not hundreds of tiny legs, but the alien was probably longer than the height of two people combined. Its body was about as wide as the average oak tree, and if one wanted to hug the thing he or she wouldn’t even be able to stretch his or her arms all the way around its body, not that America could imagine anyone, or anything, wanting to hug this thing. The front third of its body stood upright, and the legs there turned into tiny claws. The scariest part of the Taxxon, if America could even name a part that was the scariest, was its head. The head contained four red eyes that were pupiless and probably scleraless too, only red globs of what almost looked like jello. Its mouth was even worse -- it reminded America of lampreys, those creepy fish with perfectly round mouths with rings of hundreds of teeth.

“You are fucking scared.”

America made no move to deny it. He was slightly unnerved. Only slightly.

“There are more species aliens Yeerks have enslaved. These are most common. But you must know, people Controllers are most common.”

America tried to nod, and then remembered he wasn’t metaphysically present.

“Well that is it for now. You’re fucking welcome,” Tony’s voice said, and then the gray haze disappeared, and America was back in his house again, with a helmet on his head.

He took off the helmet and looked at Tony.

“Thanks man,” America settled for saying, and cracked a weak smile.

He now had information about the Yeerks’ behavior, especially their own most important weakness. It was just like that part of his movies where the hero found out that the villain had a weakness, and soon exploited it to gain victory! If America had been metaphysically present in the space, he would have pumped a fist in victory. Now that he knew about these mysterious underground complexes, perhaps the next step towards defeating these aliens was to find one, and attack it, even if it meant that he would run into alien and human Controllers alike on his journey. But he knew he had his friends, and he knew he had courage.

The human race, and all other races that depended on a group of heroes, had hope.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, America?” The distorted voice over the phone asked.

“Yeah?” America balanced the device between his shoulder and his ear as he frantically pulled on a sock while hopping on another foot.

“What are we going to do with the rest of the world?” England said.

America frowned.

“What do you mean, rest of the world?” he wondered.

America could almost see the eyerolling England was doing as he sighed and answered.

“Only the bloody one hundred and ninety or so other nations that weren’t there during our last world meeting!” England shrieked, and even over the phone, America could almost see his furrowed eyebrows and bared teeth.

 _Wait, there were other nations that didn’t get the morphing power._ This sudden realization hit America with about as much subtlety as a brick to the face of a child.

“Oh. Shit.”

England’s sigh resonated over the phone, and America couldn’t help but look away from his icon for England (a picture of the older nation looking off into the distance, his face expressionless and not scrunched up in annoyance like it would be usually; a picture America had proudly taken and set himself without England’s knowledge) in shame.

“I just hope you have a plan for how you’re going to let them know about this new development in world unity and whatnot. You’re also the only one who seems to know what he’s doing, so don’t try to pass the task onto someone else,” England continued, in a much calmer tone of voice.

America groaned, and then said “Fine.”

“Good.”

A moment of silence passed while both of the nations considered what their next move would be in the plan.

“I guess it would be kind of chaotic if we suddenly got everyone to embark on missions at once, with there being almost two hundred nations, and all,” America mused.

“I agree,” England said, “And perhaps it would be a good idea to wait until after our initial group of recruits gets used to their powers before telling the others. Maybe we’ll even be able to execute that mission you and Canada discussed at the last meeting, too.”

“Oh, right, that mission,” America said, and thought back to his plan to inspect everyone’s bosses.

“That might be a challenge.”

America absentmindedly nodded, before remembering that he was talking to England over the phone, and that the other nation wouldn’t be able to see him nod, and added, “Yep.”

Yet another moment of silence passed.

“So, uh, do you have any plans for the day?” America asked.

England raised a thick eyebrow at this, but responded nonetheless.

“I do, unfortunately. I’m planning on going down to the London Zoo to acquire some lion DNA, actually. Why?” he said.

“Nothing, nothing,” America said as he realized that even if England had free time, the most they could do was have a video call. America thought about this for a moment before responding.

“Oh wait! Are you doing that because the lion is your national animal?” He asked.

“Yes. That, and the fact that lions are one of the strongest animals in the world, and since we are going to be battling mind-controlling aliens and all, I figured, ‘why not have the most powerful animal morphs?’”

“That’s good, I guess,” America mumbled, lacking more meaningful words to say.

In reality, he was distracted imagining England morphing into a lion, a form that would complement his feline grace, the liquidity of his movements, those brilliant green eyes turning into a dark gold…

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes!” America shouted when he realized he had zoned out.

“Good grief. You’re always daydreaming these days,” England muttered.

America could not help but chuckle sheepishly (as a very, very dark corner of his mind simultaneously wondered if he was slowly becoming a furry, before he dismissed the thought completely under the fear that it would contaminate his pure conscience forever).

“I’m thinking we should all have our signature animal morphs, you know, kind of like how all superheroes have their one signature icon? Maybe they could be our national animals! We could scare the Yeerks if we look like we’re more organized!” he said.

“Perhaps,” England said, “What would yours be?”

“I’m thinking of acquiring some buffalo DNA to go along with my bald eagle DNA. Since, you know, I’m making the buffalo my other national animal, and all.”

America was surprised when England only snorted.

“Of course you are,” England said, and if America had been better at reading the atmosphere, he would have detected the hint of fond affection in the older nation’s voice.

 

* * *

 

“So, uh, welcome!” America said as he clapped his hands together.

Everyone else merely stared back at him.

For once, every single nation was silent. Nobody was fighting. The entire meeting had been so peaceful it was unreal.

“How’s everyone’s morphing practicing going?” America offered awkwardly in the silence.

“I got a lot of morphs! I can turn into a wolf, and a bunny, and so many other things now!” Italy exclaimed.

America thought about this for a moment. In reality, he was pretty curious to see what everyone had chosen as their morphs. He figured that if all the nations were as patriotic as he was, they would at least have their national animals. When the image of Canada as a beaver popped up in his wild imagination, he couldn’t help but snort.

“Is something wrong?” Somebody asked, and America was yanked back to the present.

“Ah, nope! Just thought about something,” he shrugged it off, before continuing. “Anyways, I think we should make plans for our very first mission today! I hope all of you know how to morph now, because what we’re going to be doing is probably going to involve that morphing.”

He only gained about a dozen raised eyebrows in response.

“A-anyway, I prepared this really nice battle plan and everything, so I hope you guys appreciate it,” he muttered, as he turned away to start preparing the presentation.

A lot of fidgeting around and irritated shouting at a laptop later, a clean and surprisingly neat powerpoint slide appeared on the board.

America retrieved his handy pointer stick thing from his briefcase, stabbed it at the slide, and began his speech.

“First order of business: The issue.

“As you all know, anyone can be a Controller. Anyone. This includes people in important political positions, such as our bosses, and various other politicians. If any Yeerks have managed to infiltrate our governments at such influential levels, who knows what they could do to harm us? It could only be a matter of time before they infest everyone!” America yelled, as he smacked the stick against the words on the board for emphasis.

The other nations looked up at him with slightly concerned gazes, although a hint of consideration remained in their expressions.

America took this as a sign that they understood and were ready for the next slide. He reached over and pushed a key on the laptop, then returned his stick thing to pointing at the new slide.

“Next thing: The solution.

“In order to ensure that all of our bosses are not Controllers, we need to put surveillance on them. We can know if they are Controllers by watching where they go. You see, there’s a weakness that Yeerks, and therefore Controllers, have. It’s their need for food.

“Every three days,  a Yeerk must leave its host and swim around in this weird pool thingy where it gets all its nutrition from. According to my firsthand source and friend, Tony, Yeerks have built massive underground ‘complexes,’ whatever _that_ means, where these pools are located, and every three days they routinely make their hosts go down to the pools, they leave the hosts and swim around, they reinfest their hosts, and the leave the pool and continue with their lives.

“Now, Tony didn’t really specify what these pools would look like, and what the complexes are, and where current ones exist, so I guess he doesn’t know. My plan is just to have us put surveillance on all our bosses and see if any of them go anywhere strange, like near a pool filled with weird gray stuff. Or into any of these so called ‘underground complexes’.”

And with that, America jabbed his pointer stick at a hastily scrawled image of a kiddie pool filled with gray on the slide.

There was only silence.

 _Wow, I must have done a pretty good job of explaining if none of them have questions_ , America thought to himself.

“Wait.”

_I’m wrong again. When am I not?_

“Shouldn’t it be very obvious that a person has been infested by a slug alien, then, since the Yeerks leave their heads to swim around in those pools? Where do the people stay, and why haven’t they escaped, yet, if they get to be free once every three days?” Japan asked.

America considered this for a moment. He did have a point.

“I’m really not sure. Tony didn’t say much about the topic. I guess we’ll just have to carry through with our mission and see if we can figure out the reason along the way,” he said.

Everyone simultaneously groaned.

“This is no way to conduct a mission of significant importance,” England muttered.

“You know, I do agree, but it isn’t like we have any better plan,” America said.

Everyone sat back in their seats and in various thoughtful poses as they mulled over the topic. If they weren’t prepared and hadn’t planned out their attack strategy carefully enough, something could go wrong. The Yeerks could find out about the existence of personifications, which they probably didn’t know about, and the nations would all become Controllers. It didn’t matter if they were immortal. If they became Controllers, then who knew what the effect on their respective countries could result in? Either way, it was dangerous, but the issue, if left undealt with, would result in even more danger to the personifications, as well as every other human ever.

“I think we should do it,” a voice piped up from the far end of the table, and when everyone looked up to see who is was, they were surprised to find Russia, of all people talking.

“It may not be the best idea, but our world is in danger, and every moment we don’t do something means more and more people are being infested,” he continued.

America’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“You… agree with me?” he whispered.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Russia asked, and his bright purple eyes flashed with something sadder.

It was then that America remembered all the troubled times they had gone through, when they were at each other’s throats not so long ago. And though he still felt a bit weary about talking with the other man, nevermind working with him, he had a thought, just a tiny thought. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.

“So, is everyone up for it?” America asked, after the silence passed.

The various nations looked up from their gazing off into the distance, and exchanged glances. Yet another tense moment of silence passed between the group, before, finally, Italy, of all people, slammed a hand down in the center of the table.

“I think we should!”

And absolutely no one was surprised when the rest of the nations slowly placed their hands on top of Italy’s and then one another’s.

“Is this going to be our secret handshake, then?” France asked as he stared down at all of their intertwined fingers.

“I think it already is,” England responded.

Nervous chuckles resounded around the group, and absolutely no one was surprised so see some genuine smiles going around.

 

* * *

 

“Are there any questions about the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons?” America asked once again, and scanned the room full of bewildered faces and raised eyebrows and hesitantly raised hands.

“Are you sure that we will be able to battle these creatures and win?” Germany asked.

America simply shrugged.

“Nah. Not really. But I trust that if Tony says the morphing power will help us in battle, it will,” he said.

“So you’re willing to trust a mysterious gray thing that doesn’t always answer your questions and sometimes tells you half-truths?”

“Well, now that you put it that way…”

“I’m not sure I like this plan now that I know about these aliens,” China muttered under his breath.

The nations all looked at one another, then back at America, who simply raised and eyebrow and mouthed “what?”

“You know what? I think we should go for it anyway. It’s not like it changes much. Even if we do run into these creepy demon things, we should totally be fine. I haven’t seen anything that can pierce the hide of a rhino!” Prussia yelled.

America looked around at his fellow personifications once more.

“Is everyone still for it?” he asked.

A chorus of ‘sure’s and ‘whatever’s followed his question.

America leaned back in his seat and smiled. It looked like this wouldn’t be too hard, as long as everyone followed his rules and his master plan, which was sure to bring the Yeerks and their minions to their knees, not that Yeerks actually had any knees. The point was, the plan was simple, and when had anything stopped the great United States of America? Plus, this time, the whole world was working together, and he knew that with the power of a humanity united, they could do anything.

“We should assign teams, then, since it would be wise to have more than one person watching each political leader at a time, in case something goes wrong,” America said.

“Teams assigned based on geographical proximity would probably be the best, too,” Germany added.

“Right.”

The room’s discussion soon devolved into the breaking up of teams. It seemed that the majority of the European nations already had a plan worked out, although every once in a while a very clear scream of defiance/refusal was heard echoing through the meeting room. The shrieking usually came from France and England, who had more or less been grouped together by the other nations because of the sheer obviousness of their impending team placement, and both had been rather defiant of the decision, especially England, who was going off on a tangent of how something would go wrong, they wouldn’t work well together, France would be a lazy jerk and get them both into trouble, etc, etc.

When America turned his head a mere centimeter to the left, Canada was suddenly there, as if he had materialized at his side when he wasn’t paying attention. America jumped in surprise, and yelled, “Don’t do that!”

“Don’t do what?” Canada demanded, “I was standing next to you the whole time! You just-- nevermind!”

America raised his already raised eyebrow slightly higher at Canada’s remark, but the other nation just kept going on anyway.

“Anyways, I’m assuming we’re going to be a team? We can probably help each other out. I can’t picture any of the guys from Europe flying across an ocean to team up with us and help us investigate our bosses and other powerful leaders...” Canada said, then slowly trailed off as his gaze migrated over to the other nations, who were eagerly discussing (and occasionally yelling) with one another. America noted Canada’s gaze, and followed with his own.

The twins’ gazes both locked on the one other person whose country was the closest in relation to their own, and could possibly all function together as one team. Then their gazes landed on each other, as a series of coordinated and similar thoughts ran through their heads. While America’s differed in that he was weary, Canada’s were insistent. America didn’t look away, even though, deep down, he knew it would have to happen, in order to ensure their nations’ respective securities.

“We’re going to have to team up with Russia,” both whispered under their breaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are having trouble picturing the aliens, here are some reference images from the original Animorphs books:
> 
>   
> The blue one is the Andalite (the good centaur alien) and the green one is the Hork-Bajir (the enslaved yet kind-hearted dinosaur).
> 
>   
> These are Taxxons (the enslaved yet eternally hungry and lowkey evil centipedes).
> 
>   
> These are Yeerks (the evil aliens) depicted swimming around.
> 
> If you go back one chapter and scroll down to the notes, I have also added reference images for the types of bird morphs the various nations have! Very handy for fanart (that is, if you're planning to draw any fanart for this fic. If you do, I will cry in joy.)!
> 
> There will be no update next week as I have to finish writing up the chapter (and I won't be able to on time). But stay tuned! Furthermore, comments would be much appreciated!


	5. Mission Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They go on a mission.
> 
> Suggested background music: [Mission Impossible by ThePianoGuys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p0BqUcQ7i0)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm beginning to run out of time to write. Sorry for the delay in updating!
> 
> On a completely unrelated note, I went back and reread some of my old Homestuck fanfics. They're so bad and so good simultaneously. Good times, man.

America cringed down at the small sampling of bugs in the tray before him. Right then, his only comprehensible thought was simply “Why?”

Why did they have to acquire insect morphs, out of all the morphs they could have acquired? America could have taken a submarine down to the bottom of the ocean and acquired the DNA of a freaking giant clam or whatever for all he cared. But no, he was stuck amongst his group of fellow nations and assistant scientists, with a tray of bugs. _Bugs!_

Life as a Nationmorph sure did suck.

Not that America was afraid of bugs or anything. It was simply the prospect of being one that made him nervous. For example, if he were to be a fly, anyone could swat at him and he would be dead. _Dead_ dead. And America was pretty sure that when you died in a morph, you stayed dead, nation immortality aside (he hadn’t actually confirmed this fact with Tony yet, but he did have a hunch).

But anyways, back to the present. America kept glaring down at the bugs scurrying around in the tray-- a fly in a transparent plastic box and a cockroach.

“Well?” England asked, and when America looked up he was assaulted by the greenest pair of eyes he had ever seen. America quickly looked away in order to avoid certain doom.

“I’m just getting myself ready, you know? Better allow the bloodstream to accept the DNA and all, or however it works,” America chuckled.

He received only a raised eyebrow in return, but England stopped asking questions after that.

After taking one last deep breath, America closed his eyes, reached out with a hand, and laid it across the hard exoskeleton of the cockroach. An involuntary shudder passed through his whole body as he did so (he really shouldn’t have watched that horror sci-fi movie on bug aliens invading the earth last night).

The absorption process felt no different than what touching a cockroach without the morphing ability would have felt like, and yet America still felt different.

Next, he moved onto the fly, which was buzzing around in the little plastic container and crashing into the sides of the plastic like its life depended on it. America lifted up the top of the container, and the fly, sensing its one hopeful moment of freedom, made a dash for the exit. America tried and failed to grab the fly as it zoomed out of the container and into the empty space of the room.

The other nations collectively rolled their eyes as the fly flew around their heads and near their legs. Several made vain attempts to catch it, and none succeeded.

America was about to call another flock of scientists down to the room to deliver him some more flies when Russia rushed out of nowhere and snagged the escaping fly in between two gloved fingers like some kind of action movie ninja. Once again, everyone’s jaws simultaneously dropped open at the act.

Russia cheerfully walked over to America, and dropped the somehow-still-alive fly in his outstretched hand. America looked down at the dazed, confused fly, then back at the scarf-covered nation, and then back at the fly.

He chose not to say anything.

He closed his eyes and imagined the DNA being absorbed into his body, then turned and passed the fly on for the next nation to acquire. No words were spoken for a while, as everyone took their turns acquiring the fly and cockroach DNA. Several nations made disgusted faces at the bugs in their hands, and others kept faces as straight and emotionless as stone as they acquired the DNA. When everyone was done, America motioned for the already-present flock of scientists to leave.

“So, uh, do we all have final team placements?” America asked as he clasped his hands together.

Almost immediately, the group of personifications split and condensed into smaller, distinct groups. America supposed these were the teams, then. There was England and France, looking all unhappy to be together (or at least England looked that way. France seemed rather smug, as if he was planning something). And there was Prussia, Germany, and Italy, looking like they were all ready to take on the world. There was Japan and China standing together, both looking almost distant and sad (had something happened between them too?). As America watched, when Russia tried to join the other Europeans, he was more or less forced away by the power of several pairs of eyes glaring at him. When he tried to join China and Japan, they simply moved away from him and gave him weary looks.

America gave Canada a look, and nodded.

“You can join our group!” America offered, and was not surprised at all when his voice cracked.

Russia looked up with hope in his eyes.

America and Canada welcomed the other nation into their little group, and then they, along with all the others, moved out of the lab room, and dispersed into the hallways to head home.

As they walked up flights of stairs and through cold, empty, echoing hallways, a vague attempt at conversation was made.

“So, guys, anyone wanna volunteer to be the first to have their boss inspected?” America tried.

Canada raised a hand in response.

“I will!”

“Alright then! How does next weekend sound? We’ll fly over to your place, you bring us to your president or prime minister or, uh, actually, how does your government work again?” America fumbled around for words to say as something akin to guilt filled up his insides.

“Oh my God.”

“Also, where is your capital? Actually, what is your capital?”

“Oh my God, America.”

“I’m sorry!”

“I’ll just text all the information to you, or something,” Canada muttered.

“Haha. Sorry about that,” America said again, scratching his head in embarrassment.

The nations continued walking in almost-silence for a few minutes, and as they rounded bends and went up and down more flights of stairs, America continued thinking.

“I can go after you,” he said.

“That’s fine,” both Canada and Russia commented at the same time.

“Do you need a map? An address for the White House?”

“No.”

“Okay, because I have a few copies right he-- wait a second! How do you know where my capital is?” America demanded of Russia as he whirled around to point a finger in his face.

“Is there something wrong with that?” Russia asked, confused.

America realized his mistake too late, and turned around sheepishly while trying to laugh it off.

“It’s nothing, nothing at all!”

Canada had to stop rolling his eyes at that point, for fear of them popping straight out of his skull, doing a freaking pirouette, and absconding through the ceiling and off into the vastness of the cosmic void.

“Well, if you two go first, I guess I’ll go last,” Russia said.

They nodded their heads. That was fine.

America opened his mouth to ask where Russia’s prime minister usually resided, but he was silenced by a finger to the lips from none other than Canada. The northern nation’s eyes said it all: _do not say anything. You will offend him. I will give you the information if you so desperately need it._

“Alright then. Next weekend, you guys are coming over to 24 Sussex at seven a.m. sharp, eastern time, Saturday morning. You should probably come by plane, and then fly to the house in your bird morphs,” Canada commanded, and paused to look at his fellow personifications. “Is that okay?”

The others nodded their heads in agreement.

“Okay.”

They had reached the final hallway leading to the exit of the building, America realized.

“Well, bye!”

“Bye!”

“Goodbye!”

The three nations went their separate ways as they left the entrance of the meeting building. Three figures walked into the distance, and were enveloped by the wind and background noise of irritated citizens and honking cars.

 

* * *

 

When America’s plane finally touched down, he looked up from his laptop, yanked out his earbuds, threw his head back, and sighed.

Five hours for a flight. It wasn’t the longest flight he had ever been on, nor the longest time he had spent travelling elsewhere. He recalled memories of having to spend months aboard ships just to get across the Atlantic. Thank god for the evolutionary capability of technology and the ingenuity of his own people.

He realized that the nice stewards were telling everyone they can get up. America sighed again. It would probably have been wiser to just take one of the private jets provided so helpfully to him by his air force, or even better, to just take his old plane by himself, but that wouldn’t have gone over too well with the Ottawa Airport, especially if he didn’t contact Canada in advance about it (which he hadn’t). The last time he had done something like that, it had resulted in quite the incident, complete with several of Canada’s (awfully pathetic) defense branch as well as his leader and even Canada himself called in.

And so America waited patiently as hordes of people began taking their luggage down from the overhead compartments, wincing every once in a while as someone’s grip slipped and a loud crash resounded through the cabin. After the majority of the passengers had exited the plane, he too, stood up, stretched, and quickly and efficiently put his laptop back into his backpack with the speed and fluidity of a cheetah (haha, get it? Because he has that morph now, and… yeah).

After exiting the plane and walking through the walkway, America arrived in a large, flat roofed chamber, where the echoes of flight calls, the rolling of suitcase wheels, and the screaming of young children assaulted his delicate ears.

He followed the signs to the exit, a grand set of rotating doors that led out into a road where cars and buses parked.

“I don’t think Canada had the decency to get me a ride,” America muttered as he scanned the cars.

Eventually, after standing around long enough looking hopeless, he hailed a taxi, and told the driver to “go to the nearest hotel.” The driver raised a questioning eyebrow at the nation, no doubt thinking about those darn Americans invading his country, didn’t ask any questions, and started driving.

Soon after, the cab pulled up into the driveway of an inn. America got out with his belongings, thanked and paid the driver, and turned around to face the entrance of the hotel.

 

* * *

 

America finished dialing and held his phone up to his ear.

“Hello?” A meek voice asked from the other end.

“Yo, Canada!” America yelled.

Canada, like so many people before him, simply held the phone as far away from his ear as possible while still being able to hear what America said.

“What do you need?” Canada said.

“I just wanted to know if you’re already on your way to the house,” America said.

“I am, actually. You have about one hour to get there before our mission formally starts, right? I have no doubt you’ll probably get lost trying to find the house in bird morph, so you should probably memorize the map of Ottawa, especially since you can’t carry a phone as a bird and all.”

“Hmm,” America groaned. This would be hard. Without the assistance of his oh-so-wonderful handheld technology… “But birds of prey have really good vision too! Maybe we’ll see each other,” America exclaimed.

“Maybe,” Canada replied.

No one talked for a few seconds.

“Well, see you in about an hour,” America said, and upon hearing Canada’s goodbye, hung up.

America sat on the edge of his hotel room bed with his phone in his hand for another few minutes as he thought about the day’s activities. With luck, everyone would make it to the house on time, including himself (and since he always got lost, that might be an issue). He then wondered how the rest of the nation teams were doing. As of now, they were on Eastern Time, and it was Saturday. But for the other teams, like England and France, their mission had probably already started, since they were six hours or so ahead. China and Japan were at least half a day into the mission (what with the 12 hour headstart and all). Assuming everyone started around the same time (relative to their timezones), they would have to keep watch on their various bosses for another three days, just in case.

 _Enough pondering,_ America told himself. _It’s time to go._

He opened up a map on his phone, typed in the address, and stared at it for a good long time until he was sure he knew which highways and roads to follow to get there. Then, he put his phone down on his bed, opened up the patio door, and felt the cool wind blow into the room (thank god for functioning, openable hotel patio doors). After that, he stripped off his clothes and tossed them in a pile on the bed. He was glad he had gotten a room so many floors up. It wouldn’t do good for a random citizen to see a naked man standing in front of open patio doors.

With that, he closed his eyes, and pictured himself as the eagle.

In a matter of minutes, he was up in the sky.

The weather was fairly nice, and despite being partly cloudy, there was enough sun to create rising pillars of heat America used to his advantage.

Often, the physics of gaining altitude were no more complicated than using warm, rising air as something akin to an elevator.

Once he was at that much higher altitude, he could see the rest of the city, as well as all the major roads and the street signs marking the various major roads. It helped to have eyesight better than any human could hope to have.

Within about ten minutes, he spotted another bird of prey in the distance, also riding the thermals.

<Hello!> America tried calling out to the bird, which he couldn’t quite identify.

<Is that you, America?> A voice responded.

It was Russia.

<Do you know where the house is? I can’t find it,> Russia said.

<Yes, actually! It should be right about… where you’re flying over right now.>

<Oh. Okay!>

America watched with his awesome eagle vision as the vulture swooped down and disappeared into the tree line. America followed as well, arriving over the house within two minutes. He tried as hard as possible to be subtle in his dive, so that he wouldn’t attract any extra attention. Who knew how many people here could be Controllers? And then there were the security guards that no doubt patrolled the perimeter...

Before he demorphed, he tried broadcasting his thought speak to Canada (who would hopefully be within range) as well as Russia.

<Alright, guys! I’m going to demorph, then remorph as a fly. Hope to see you in the house!> He said, then closed his eyes and concentrated.

Within a few minutes, he was cowering in thin spandex somewhere inside a cluster of bushes, and despite the fact that he was very thankful for the bushes hiding him, he was not thankful for the fact that it was still a bit chilly, especially with his short-sleeved shirt and shorts. Darn Canada for being so breezy, even when the weatherman had predicted habitable living conditions!

After shivering for a good few seconds, America closed his eyes again, and this time, he imagined turning into a fly. Of course, whenever he thought about the compound eyes, or the tiny hairs, he remembered one of the monster aliens that usually appeared in his movies, and was appropriately disgusted. But he continued concentrating anyway, because the others would never let him hear the end of it if he couldn’t follow through with a mission just because he was too much of a coward to morph a little fly.

When he could no longer close his eyes due to not having eyelids, he wished he hadn’t looked down at his arm, which blackened like burnt toast and developed some kind of hard shell on the outside. And there were also the hairs. And then there were the compound eyes, which developed when America’s field of vision suddenly blacked out then reappeared as a thousand separate tiny images, all showing the world from a slightly different angle.

That was especially helpful now that he was smaller than the smallest leaf on the nearest bush.

When America was finally sure his wings were not malformed, he attempted lift off. The first time he tried flying, it did not work. The second time, his wings suddenly came to life, and he zoomed upwards like a supersonic jet going straight up.

<Whoa!> He couldn’t help but exclaim as he nearly flew compound-eye-first into a branch that looked like a column.

After a few more minutes, he was sure he had full control of his flying facilities, and was ready to concentrate on the actual mission: getting into Canada’s White House.

Except there was one tiny problem.

Being the size that he was, and having compound eyes, he couldn’t exactly see more than what must have been two or three feet in front of him clearly. Given that he was hovering somewhere above the mass of bushes he had morphed in, he could be at least fifty feet away from the actual entrance of the house.

 _Oh great_ , he thought to himself.

Then, a meek thought-speak voice spoke up.

<Hey guys! Are you all here and ready?> It was Canada.

<Yes!> America responded.

<Yep!> Russia called, from somewhere off in the distance.

<I am up and ready in my fly morph! I know you guys must be having the same problem of not being able to see anything, right?>

<Yeah,> America groaned.

<Well, don’t worry! I can still sense where I am, despite being a fly and all. It’s kind of weird, the sense doesn’t feel the way it usually does, but I don’t think we should question it. You just have to find me, and then follow me into the house. I scouted out an open window earlier,> Canada finished.

 _Thank goodness for the nations’ ability to know where they were on their own soil, even in morph_ , America thought to himself.

<How can we find you?> Russia asked.

<I made sure to morph near you guys. And I can sense that I’m right about… a few feet to your left, America, and about six or seven feet in front of you, Russia.>

After that comment, it took almost thirty agonizing minutes to meet up. America tried flying in the direction Canada had said he was in, but after flying for a while, only ran into another tree. He had flown around in circles, before suddenly almost colliding with another airborne blob, which turned out to be Canada in his fly morph.

<Finally!> Canada cried, <I’ve been hovering in the air doing nothing for half an hour.>

<Hey! It wasn’t my fault flies can’t see,> America yelled.

Not too long after, Russia buzzed past the two, and they were finally able to journey off together towards the side window Canada had talked about earlier.

When they finally, finally found that window (which was somehow still miraculously open despite the chilly breeze!) they entered, one by one, like a military group of trained insects waiting to unleash their insect coup on the president/prime minister/moose/whoever even ran Canada.

<Alright guys, time to find my boss,> Canada whispered, like he was scared of someone overhearing their thoughts.

America made sure to let him know.

<You don’t have to thought-whisper! We can only hear each other because we’re specifically broadcasting these thoughts to one another. Or at least that was what Tony told me when I asked him about thought-speak,> America said helpfully.

<Oh. I was about to say that if everyone else could hear what we were thinking they would probably be flipping out by now.>

A minute of silence passed as the three fly nations identified the correct person as Canada’s boss, who was sitting at a desk, doing some kind of paperwork.

<I guess we stay here and watch him do nothing all day, or at least until we start switching out shifts to demorph and remorph,> America commented in the silence.

<I agree! I do not want to be trapped in the body of a fly for the rest of my life,> Russia said.

They all mentally shuddered at the possibility.

Within about an hour, the guy sitting at the desk had yet to make any special movements, especially to some mysterious underground complex.

<Why don’t we all start the demorphing shift change now?> Russia suggested.

<Sure. You can go first if you want!> Canada said, <And I’ll escort you!>

America watched (not that he could actually see them very clearly, and all) as they left the room through the open window, probably to fly off into the bushes again.

When they rejoined him, Canada escorted him off as well.

They continued their surveillance and regular demorphing for the rest of the day. By around four in the evening, they were all so bored, they had begun to try making normal conversation.

<So, how’s that hacking of my election results going?> America said.

While Canada mentally winced, Russia simply replied with his usual (probably fake) cheer, <A lot better than how your economy is doing!>

While the two nations blatantly traded insults, Canada tried rolling his eyes (he couldn’t, being a fly and all), and pondering over what the next few days would be like.

By the end of the day, they would need to start switching over to night shifts.

<One of us should stay while the other two demorph, return to their hotel rooms, eat something, and take a quick nap. We’ll keep doing the shifts like that, until the three days have passed. If we see no strange behavior from your boss, then he’s all clear,> America said.

The others broadcast their mental nods.

<I can stay, since I know where everything is. Come back in about two hours!> Canada said.

With that, America and Russia were off. They demorphed and remorphed in the bushes, then flew off to their various hotels. They both ate quick suppers from the local restaurants and cafes in their hotels, and despite the fact that they were bored out of their minds, still hungry, and rather tired, they retired to their various rooms for a quick nap. Less than two hours later, they were back to relieve Canada from his shift.

Again, the process repeated itself so many times all throughout the night and well into the morning, and by the time 8:00 am had rolled around, America swore he could have morphed, flew, demorphed, remorphed, and flown to the house while drunk. The nations were all exhausted out of their minds, and somehow even more bored than they were before.

<This has to be the worst stealth mission I’ve ever been on,> America complained at around noon.

<I agree,> Russia groaned.

<We’re going to have to do this for another two days, including today,> Canada reminded them, and earned grim cries of outrage and exhaustion in reply.

<We should have come up with a better method of surveillance. For example, having Canada simply follow his boss around for the day, while you and I keep watch as flies, or even better, birds of prey, to lessen the burden on demorphing and so on,> Russia said.

Two whole seconds of silence heralded the other two nations’ mental facepalming.

<How did I not think of that?> Canada grumbled.

<How did I not think of that?> America cried.

And so, by the time the afternoon rolled around, Canada, fully human and fully dressed, had greeted his boss with a surprise visit, and told him he would be helping out with his daily affairs for a couple of days.

In places where Canada could not accompany his boss (like the bathroom), it was up to the others in fly morph to keep up the surveillance, just to make sure there wasn’t some passage to an underground complex in it.

Canada slept in the spare bedroom at the end of the night, and America and him rotated shifts (simply because they looked the same while asleep and in the dark), while Russia was forced to continue with the same flying back to the hotel, napping, and returning procedure they had developed the day before.

By the time they were well into the third day, they were ready to rip their hair out.

<I swear, in my four-ish whole centuries of existing, I have never been through something as agonizing as this,> America began.

<I agree,> Canada said.

<I also agree,> Russia added.

But by the end of the third day, the boss, as well as all other people that came into the house, had not entered or left for any weird underground complex stairways.

<Finally!> All three exclaimed as they took off from the house.

The rest of the day, for America and Russia, was spent packing up and getting ready for their flights. Canada escorted both of them to their respective flight gates. Within hours, the planes were ready to be boarded.

While they made plans to go to America’s boss’s house the next week, the unspoken victory rang in all their ears and minds over their calm discussion.

Canada’s most prominent political figures were cleared and Yeerk-free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looks like we're formally switching over to a once-every-other-week update schedule. Sucks to be me and have so much work, amirite. I am going to publish a Halloween USUK au on Halloween (a few days from now, omg) so watch out for that!
> 
> Comments/reviews would be much appreciated!


	6. A Visit to the White House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone moves on to Part II of the first mission. Unfortunately, this mission does not go as well as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece is already so long, asddkjklhlk;j. I've never been so devoted to a fanfic. I should give myself a round of applause. Wow. And still no one reads this. Why do you guys even like that other fic I literally spent like 10 minutes writing?
> 
> Again, the suggested background music is the same as before: [Mission Impossible by ThePianoGuys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p0BqUcQ7i0)

In between vigorous planning for the next surveillance mission and doing normal nation personification stuff (mostly filling out ever more paperwork and attending meetings where nothing was ever resolved), the nations had all come up with the brilliant idea of having video conferences as a way of reporting on their assorted missions.

After all, Skype existed for a reason, and why not take advantage of technology when it was readily available and so much more useful than what they were using before?

And so, in the week following Canada’s turn and preceding America’s, as well as the other team’s concluded first missions, all the nations had come together to start their video conference. Needless to say, despite its convenience, it wasn’t the most organized way of communication.

It appeared that the mere fact no one was actually talking to anyone else in person was enough to throw the meeting into chaos within the moment everyone had joined.

“Can everyone please quiet down?” Germany attempted to scream for the fifth time.

Of course, his words went unheard. Italy was trying to figure out how to get the camera to work (it kept pointing at his table rather than his face), France was trying to figure out how to get the microphone to work (he had solved the problem of showing his face a long time ago as it was his primary concern at the time), America himself was busy trolling the others like the immature teenager he really was, England had dropped his laptop earlier when he was trying to stop the program from lagging, and in general everyone (whose microphones were on) were screaming over one another and trying to get the darn technology to just listen to them.

“This was a horrible idea from the start,” China complained.

It was another long half hour before the nations were more or less settled into their video call without too many technical issues.

“Now,” Germany began, voice low and throbbing with uncontrolled irritation, “Who would like to begin giving out a report of how their mission is going, or how their first surveillance went?”

“Me, me!” Italy said.

“Okay,” Germany sighed, “Go ahead, Italy.”

“So me, Germany, and Prussia all went to my place a few days ago. We did the surveillance on my boss and a few other big guys, and we didn’t find anything strange. I think they are all clear. Next Saturday we’re going over to Germany’s capital!”

“Right. It was a standard mission, and nothing went wrong. Who would like to go next?” Germany asked.

“I think we’ll begin our r-” England said and sighed when France interrupted him but making no move to talk over the other nation.

“I was over in London with England, and we inspected most of Parliament, the prime minister, and the queen,” France said.

“Well, I had no doubts that my queen was all clear, even before I knew about the Yeerks’ threat to prominent political figures,” England sniffed.

“We will be inspecting my prime minister at l’hotel matignon next week,” France said.

“Good, good,” Germany said, “How about you, America, Russia, and Canada?”

“We did surveillance on Canada’s boss, as well as several others who stayed at 24 Sussex, and they are all cleared,” Russia said.

“Alright. Lastly, China and Japan?”

“We inspected my president, vice president, and a few members of Congress,” China said, “Before moving to Japan’s boss next week, we’re considering switching our method of surveillance to having one person in human form following the people around, and a second person in raptor form. We could make use of the enhanced vision of birds of prey.”

“That… sounds like a really good idea,” America muttered, “If we had thought of that earlier, we wouldn’t have had to do night shifts as flies.”

His quiet response received a few murmurs of agreement.

“Alright. That seems to be it, then,” Germany said.

“Has anyone had any trouble with their missions?” England asked.

A collective chorus of ‘no’s came out from the speakers on America’s laptop.

“One more thing,” Prussia suddenly interrupted, bringing all attention (and eyes) towards his display on the screen, “There seems to be a distance limit for communication with thought-speak. Something like fifty meters. If you’re out of that range, then you can’t hear the other person’s thought-speak.”

“Everyone got that?” Germany asked.

America found himself habitually nodding to the question.

“Anything else?”

“We would suggest having at least one person be with the figure under surveillance in human form, as we tried during our mission,” Japan said.

“Yes, that strategy seems to be a lot smarter than the one where everyone morphs into flies,” Canada commented dryly (and it was painfully obvious that he had aimed that comment at one person and one person only).

“Oh shush. I wasn’t the only one who came up with the plan!” America whisper-shouted.

“Anyways,” England interrupted America and Canada’s bantering, “If everyone is clear on how the next part of the mission will be ran, we’ll all proceed with inspecting the next person’s place next week, Saturday, local time 8:00 am.”

“Yes. We’ll also have another video conference to confirm that all is going well a few days after that part of the mission is completed,” Germany said.

“Okay. Meeting adjourned, then.”

The meeting truly adjourned a lot faster than it would have if it had been in person. No nations lingered around to chat with others, as anything anyone said would have been heard by everyone else. Instead, the various videos on the screen blacked out one by one as they left.

America clicked the close button on Skype.

But he also caught England’s gaze through the laptop screen for a split second before his laggy laptop processed the order and finally shut down.

He was left with a lingering image of sharp green eyes, and a rather confused outlook on his relationship with the other nation.

 _Why does that always happen?_ America wondered.

 

* * *

 

America drove to the Dulles International Airport two hours earlier than scheduled on Saturday morning.

Already, the sky was gradually brightening, and a steady stream of planes landed and took off with huge wooshes of their engines.

After parking his car in the specified parking lot, he grabbed his backpack (hey, you never knew when you would need food, or water, or sunscreen!), and whistled as he walked off towards the central entrance. Upon entering, a grand, arched ceiling greeted him, letting in most of the dim light from outside. The airport was busy as usual; families and stern-looking businessmen briskly walked to and fro.

It was only about 6:00 am, but if the others were smarter than he was, they would have taken the liberty (ha!) of arriving earlier than 8:00, so they would have time to drop their belongings off at a hotel and fly over to the White House.

His own unspoken duty was to go pick his friends up.

And so America stepped over to the nearest giant screen displaying all the arriving flights. _Let’s see,_ he thought as he scanned the screen. Seattle, Cancun, San Diego, Munich, Istanbul, Dallas… and there was Ottawa!

America had told Canada that he would maybe possibly pick him up at the airport, probably. So maybe being slightly vague wasn’t the best idea. Oh well. Canada better appreciate him going to these lengths to help him.

In twenty minutes, America had picked up Canada from Gate 8. They had walked out of the airport and towards America’s car, where they then tossed Canada’s (actually practically weightless) luggage into the trunk and then took their respective seats on either side in the front.

“So what hotel are you staying at?” America asked.

“About that…” Canada began.

 

* * *

 

Only later, after America tossed all of Canada’s luggage into the spare bedroom of his small house in the capital that they morphed to birds and began the real mission.

While they had morphed, a part of both America and Canada’s minds had made a note that because they were viewed and viewed themselves as siblings, they didn’t feel the slightest bit of embarrassment at seeing each other naked. But whatever, all was good. It would only have been tremendously awkward otherwise.

<Having fun back there, Canada?> America teased as he effortlessly swooped forward using the momentum from a column of rising air to his advantage.

<Hey! I don’t even have a cool national bird yet, I couldn’t choose something that didn’t live in my country, and I wasn’t about to get a Canada goose morph!> Canada yelled.

America burst into laughter at the thought.

<If you did missions in the form of a Canada goose, I don’t think I would be able to take you seriously,> America said.

<I don’t think you ever take me seriously anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a loss. Maybe I should acquire a Canada goose morph just to spite you,> Canada snapped.

<Ouch.>

Canada concluded that America was appropriately roasted and dropped his tough demeanor.

Not too long after the awkward silence settled in between them, the White House  came into view on the horizon.

<There it is!>

The two soared towards the white-columned building, while their eyes both scanned for signs of a vulture that was supposedly flying towards the same destination from somewhere off in the distance.

But by the time they had landed in the branches of a dense enough cluster of trees, neither of them had been able to make contact with Russia.

<Darn it, where is he?> America wondered.

<I’m not sure,> Canada said.

<I’ll go human, act normal around my boss, et cetera. You can be a fly again,> America said.

<Do I detect a lowkey insult in that order?>

<Nope, you don’t.>

America, when he finally finished demorphing, also made the tragic mistake of forgetting that he had been perched on a tree branch, and so appropriately lost the grip his talons had given him, and fell ten feet into the grassy yet very much hard ground. He yelped and curled up where he fell, trying not to let the pain overwhelm him.

Of course, Canada had somehow managed to stay on the branch, and was now sitting on it, staring down at his brother with barely concealed pity.

While America continued trying not to die, Canada sighed, closed his eyes, and waited for the transformation to take place. Once the horrendous crunching noises started reverting through his rapidly-shrinking body, he lost his eyelids, and could only watch as his vision was halved, halved, then halved again, until he was looking out at the world through thousands of tiny technicolor TVs. He lifted up what should have been his arm and found a tiny exoskeleton covered leg. The shrinking stopped.

The tree branch he had been sitting on earlier looked like a massive scarred column beneath him. His wings buzzed as he lifted off.

Meanwhile, America had recovered, and was looking around the bushes for the pile of clothes consisting of a T-shirt and some jeans he had stashed away earlier in preparation for his current situation. He put them on as he prayed that none of the security cameras or guards had caught him stark naked -- just imagining their reactions was embarrassing enough.

All Canada had to do to find America’s form was follow the scent of tears.

<Hey, is that you?> Canada asked.

America looked down at his hand, where a fly had landed.

“Yes. Can you hear me?”

<Kind of. I can’t really _hear_ hear you, but I can sense the vibrations in the air, and I can kind of make them out into words, > he said.

“Well, I hope you can still hear me, because I’m bringing you inside. Also, keep trying to find Russia. We need at least two people in morph for surveillance,” America said.

<Gotcha.>

The security guards that had been casually wandering around the forest of trees were at first surprised to hear someone loudly trampling through the foliage. So surprised, in fact, that they almost pulled out their weapons and pointed them at the mysterious defender. But when Alfred appeared in front of them, all looks of surprise vanished into thin air. It was never abnormal for Alfred to show up, even dressed in the least formal clothes ever allowed to be worn into the country’s most important governmental building and coming out of the woods like he had been acting like the teenage goof he was deep in the forest.

“Sir,” one began, trying not to let his look of confused disapproval show.

“Hey there, Burt! Do you mind opening up the doors for me? I’m here on a surprise visit with the boss,” America said and flashed his brightest smile (the one sure to win over anyone and everyone).

The man gave America a look, but nonetheless motioned for him to follow as he bowed and opened the grand doors.

“I see they still won’t let me in without at least one person actually escorting me in,” America whispered as he slipped into the foyer.

“There’s a reason for that, you know,” Burt said, before the loud shutting of the doors cut off his voice.

America looked up and around at the high white ceiling of the foyer with awe. After all these years, it was still as awesome as it was when he first saw it.

And there, strolling through the nearest hallway, was the president.

“Eyyy!” America yelled, and descended upon his boss like a weeaboo on an anime character.

Canada, from his position on America’s hand, inferred from the commotion that he was in place. His gossamer wings buzzed as he lifted off into the air.

<I know you can’t respond to me now without making your boss suspicious, so I’ll report to you every once in a while. In the meantime, where is Russia?> Canada said.

“So I’m going to be visiting here for the next few days, I hope you don’t mind! I didn’t call up any of the secretaries beforehand,” America told his boss, suddenly wondering if it would have looked less suspicious for him to arrange his stay at the White House. Maybe they’d let him have one of the spare rooms.

The older man smiled, and the corners of his eyes got all crinkly like they always did.

“That is perfectly fine! You are always welcome, Alfred, even if you barge in like a train with no warning whatsoever.”

America chuckled sheepishly.

<Oh, your impeccable friendship with your boss is so heartwarming I could get sick,> Canada teased.

America clenched his jaw shut and resisted the temptation to retort. Not that he actually could have done so without attracting more negative attention than acceptable. Darn Canada.

<Anyways, I’m going to try thought-speak-broadcasting in as large a radius as possible to find our partner in crime here,> Canada said.

Meanwhile, America had taken the time to wander through the room as he casually accounted for all the most important figures in his government (that were there, anyway). _Yep, all here._ Now all he needed to do was clear them in the next few days, and he and his team would be two-thirds of the way done with their mission.

“Hey, did you find him yet?” America tried whispering when he saw a fly zip past his face.

<Nope,> Canada responded.

“Darn it.”

 _Where was Russia anyways?_ Neither America nor Canada had gotten in contact with him since several days before, during the video call. In fact, they weren’t even sure if his flight had landed safely.

<I guess we’ll just have to keep going on with our mission. Hopefully he’ll show up at one point,> Canada said, <and I know it’s a horrible decision, but I don’t think we have any other choice.>

America nodded, then changed his mind and whispered, “Yeah,” when he realized Canada might not have been able to see him.

After that exchange, the mission went on full force (without Russia, of course). America subtly followed his boss around, pretending to be considerate enough to help him with his daily duties, and generally appearing very likeable to the others who worked at the White House. He had that sort of ability, the charm that made everyone within a two mile radius immediately take a strong liking to him. It was strange, Canada thought. America was annoying and rather childish, and yet people were still able to see his sweet inside. Huh.

Meanwhile, Canada flew around in fly morph, casually investigating the top of people’s heads, as well as thought-broadcasting every few minutes to see if his fellow snowy nation was there yet. After more than two hours, he still wasn’t. It drove both Canada and America crazy.

“Where is he!?” America angrily whispered for what must have been the fifth or sixth time that hour.

<Oh man, I don’t know. I’m starting to get a little annoyed too,> Canada grumbled.

America glared around the room to no use. No sight of any more than a single fly, still hovering in a circle around his head.

“You already demorphed and remorphed, right?” America asked.

<Yeah, don’t worry. I did it in what I think was the bathrooms,> Canada replied.

“Alright.”

As the day went on, America gradually got more and more bored. This was insanely boring. He had imagined the mission would be like that of a spy mission, particularly one reminiscent of the ones in his movies. But there was no sneaking around or anything. Only Canada was doing the sneaking around, and he wasn’t even actually sneaking around. More like flying around. And occasionally landing on America’s shoulder for a quick rest of the wings.

By around two in the afternoon, America was about ready to fall over from boredom.

His boss had long since told him he didn’t need help anymore, and so America was forced to merely stand awkwardly by his side in case he needed some help.

<I’m gonna surveil the president. You can take a quick break if you want.>

America saw a fly zip past his face and head towards his president.

He sighed to himself and looked up at the ceiling. Maybe a short walk around the building would help clear his mind.

“Well, I’ll be off!” He announced to his boss, who politely waved him off.

While strolling through the carpeted hallways, America thought about the mission. First off, he hadn’t expected it to be so boring, even after experiencing the first part of the mission at Canada’s last week. He had hoped to get to do cool stuff, the kind of stuff intelligence agencies and such do all the time. Like hacking. And spying. Especially spying. Especially if done so while being in morph. Even if he was doing it to his own most powerful political figures.

Perhaps it would have to wait, though. For later.

America mindlessly wandered into one of the bathrooms on the first floor, and was not surprised at all when a row of stalls stretching farther than the eye could see greeted him.

It was also empty, which was a good sign, as America often had the misfortune of running into important political figures in the bathrooms and then awkwardly trying not to strike up conversation with them. Sometimes being friendly had downsides.

Yet, as he walked past the row of stalls, he noticed one of the stall doors was closed, and when he looked more closely he saw the shadow of a figure on the floor. He knew the person couldn’t see his raised eyebrow, and he raised it nonetheless. _Why is this mysterious person being so silent?_

And then a single sentence was uttered and suddenly everything made sense.

“America, is that you?” Russia’s abnormally cheerful voice echoed through the room.

America raised his other eyebrow even though he knew the other nation could not see him.

“Yes, it is me,” he said, slowly, and as all his thoughts and concerns from the last few hours came rushing to him, he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. “Where have you been? Why are you hiding in this bathroom stall? Why haven’t you joined me and Ca-”

“Listen, I found something.”

Now America actually did shut up.

Although America was not one to read the atmosphere, something seemed to change in that instant; perhaps it was the warm and pleasant atmosphere that suddenly froze over like a pond in mid-winter. Metaphorical analogies aside, America instantly knew that something was wrong.

“...what is it?” He ventured.

Russia took a deep breath.

“I found something suspicious in the floor plans of your government building,” Russia began, slowly, like he was now the one trying to convey a complicated new development to a mere child. “I realized that there was a small section on the floor map that was empty, but had just enough room to fit a staircase, or elevator, or closet. It was unmarked, but I had a feeling that something was there.”

America listened closely, ignoring the fact that his partner in crime was telling him a story in a restroom, and the ridiculousness of the whole situation in general.

“I went to go check it out without contacting you and Canada, and I found a hidden janitor’s closet. After I poked around for a while, though, I found a secret handle and input panel, which opened up a dark staircase that went on for several hundred feet down into the ground.

“I thought it was an entrance to one of your secret experimental labs, but I heard faint screaming from inside the tunnel. I didn’t dare to go in, because I hadn’t morphed yet, and I had a feeling that a fly would not be able to accurately report on what was inside.

“Then I heard someone coming up the stairs, so I panicked and ran into this bathroom to try and hide from the person. I’m not sure if they saw me, but judging from the amount of security cameras you have installed around this building, I’m sure someone else did,” Russia concluded.

There was even more silence, for a solid minute.

America pondered the situation. So Russia had found some kind of dark and mysterious staircase leading down into the underground, huh? As far as America knew, there weren’t any staircases hidden behind janitor’s closets in the White House, and he had the highest level of national clearance to know if his scientists decided to start another lab. But making one right under the White House? That would seem kind of counterproductive, not to mention risky.

Either way, it definitely wasn’t one of his labs. Which only meant…

“It must be the underground cavern Tony referred to,” America said.

“Yes. That is what I thought, too.”

The information sunk in slowly. Suddenly, the full implications of the fact that there was a Yeerk pool (an actual Yeerk pool!) under America’s own White House hit him full force. The fact that an alien complex was able to exist under the White House without anyone from his government or security forces knowing was astonishing, to say the least. It either had to be really well hidden… or maybe there was a mole in a high position keeping the others from finding out.

Now the only problem would be finding out who that one person was.

“So someone holding an important position in my government is a Controller,” America concluded.

“Yes.”

 _Oh shit,_ was all he could think.

In all his years as a nation, he had never really considered the possibility that one of his own politicians could be a slave to a slug alien. America felt distant, like he wasn’t experiencing the whole situation in person, because the mere fact of one of his politicians -- his! -- could be infested was just too hard to accept. What…

What was he going to do?

America’s own, supposedly highly secure government and security could no longer be trusted.

It was a long time before he finally drifted back into reality. Of course, as always, his befuddled mind decided to focus on the least important part of Russia’s report.

“About the security camera thing…” America began.

Russia sighed as he remembered the risks of doing what he had done.

“I’ll find a way to get you out of trouble. I can always hack my own technology, no problem. I’ll delete the footage or something. Don’t worry about it,” America tried reassuring the other nation.

Russia hummed something that vaguely sounded like “mmhmm.”

Even more silence.

 _Your government is not secure,_ a dark corner of America’s mind reminded him, _you can trust no one._

“So if there really is a Yeerk pool under the White House… should we check it out first or continue with our surveillance mission?” America said.

“Hmm,” Russia responded, “I didn’t actually see anyone go to the hidden janitor’s closet, so we don’t actually know who here is a Controller. However, because someone here definitely is infested, I think we should continue our surveillance mission first.”

“You’re right.”

“Maybe we can video call the others and see if they would like to do a joint attack on the Yeerk pool after our initial investigation.”

“Yeah.”

And then even more silence followed. As America’s mind wandered around, he wondered why his life was always peppered with so many awkward moments of silence. Sometimes he wondered if he was secretly the star of a novel or TV show in an alternate universe, because that would certainly explain a lot. (It was easier to focus on the stupid things in life, instead of dealing with the profound discovery his teammate had just made, about his own government, his own people being in danger…)

“By the way, you don’t have to keep hiding in the stall.”

“...Alright.”

And then the nation came out of the stall, looking as normal as ever.

They briefly shared eye contact and many thoughts passed between them. The mission would only get more complicated from then on.

Somehow, they didn’t argue.

Somehow they understood even without a direct exchanging of words.

“We should go get Canada and tell him the news,” America began in the silence.

“Of cour-”

Russia’s words were interrupted by sudden screaming so loud America thought his ears were ringing. The way the person was screaming, America could have sworn they were being tortured, or dying. But even as he winced, he realized something -- it was a thought-speak scream.

Thought-speak.

In morph.

_Nationmorph._

The only other person who was capable of thought-speaking in the near vicinity was currently unaccounted for, a small and vulnerable fly in a foreign building.

“Canada,” both America and Russia whispered at the same time as their gazes met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid cliffhanger is stupid. I couldn't resist, I'm so sorry.
> 
> By the way, this isn't too well researched, because I was paranoid of being put on the CIA watchlist or something after trying really hard to look up a layout of the White House so that I could have them run around into hallways and bathrooms that actually exist or whatever. Oh well. Let's pretend that this is totally what the White House looks like and how everything works.


	7. Changes of a Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canada, who is currently being a damsel in distress, is saved. America discovers something about the mysterious closet. America contacts England, and the hints of something begin to form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving!

America and Russia burst out of the bathrooms, scaring a secretary who had been walking by. They ran through the long hall only knowing that something had gone terribly wrong and that Canada was likely in danger.

Canada’s thought screaming continued in the distance, though it had died down from unintelligible shrieking to panic-induced sentence fragments, like,

<Oh my god oh my god oh my god,>

And,

<I’m going to die oh my god I can’t demorph here I’ll be seen,>

And eventually,

<Oh screw it I’m going to die if I don’t demorph so here goes!>

Right as the other two running nations entered the main foyer, where the president just so happened to be, they heard another scream, followed by more screams. It was as if every single civilian in the room suddenly decided to start being as loud as possible.

It wasn’t until America and Russia approached the spot right next to the president that they noticed what the commotion was all about.

There, on the floor, was a rapidly growing… something. It looked utterly, inexplicably horrifying. It was a mix of limbs and hair and eyes and wings and a vaguely shaped face and hands and teeth, and just, _ugh_. In that moment, America was utterly horrified, and he understood why everyone around him was screaming and backing away from the mutated lump.

That was when his mind caught up to the moment, and he suddenly understood everything.

It was Canada.

He was demorphing.

And the people around him, who had no idea what was going on, thought he was some kind of horrible mutated biological secret experiment subject gone haywire and escaped. Of course, America couldn’t blame them, since Canada currently looked like something straight out of a horror movie.

The secret service guys had rushed in and surrounded the president and were already loading their guns.

If they shot Canada, America couldn’t guarantee that he’d survive, even as a nation, because the repercussions of dying while being in morph weren’t clear yet.

In that moment, he made a split second decision. He shoved through the crowd of horrified civilians. He took a dive straight for the growing creature that was Canada, scooped him up in his arms, and made a mad dash out of the building.

<America, is that you?> Thought-speak rang in America’s head as he continued sprinting, away from the shouts calling out from behind him.

Soon he was running into the treeline, pushing past bushes and entering a barely sunlit understory a decent distance away from the security guards that were no doubt chasing after him.

America dropped Canada onto the ground. Canada, who had stopped in his demorphing during the frenzy, continued the process, growing and getting gradually less scary and much more human.

Eventually, he was lying flat on his stomach in the grass, uninjured, but looking pretty dazed (not to mention completely naked).

Unfortunately at that moment the security guards chasing after the duo chose to start running in their direction. America took one look at the approaching figures in the distance and froze.

“Oh shit. Canada, quick, hide!” America whispered and started herding the other nation towards some bushes.

“Alfred! Drop that thing! It’s probably radioactive, not to mention dangerous!” A voice yelled from the distance.

America glanced at his brother with the most panic-stricken face he had made since that one time he made the mistake of embarrassing himself in front of his president (long story, no time to think about). Canada got the cue and dived into the nearest bush appropriately.

A cluster of no less than a dozen secret service agents chose that exact moment to burst into the grassy forest clearing America was standing in. They all got into formation, guns raised and ready, pointing at everything that made any sort of motion within a fifty foot radius, including the confused squirrel that simply sat on its branch and stared at the commotion.

“Where did you put it?” One of the suited guys demanded.

America did the only thing he could do in that situation: he raised his arms and shrugged and gave the guy the most generic toothy grin he could muster.

“Alfred F. Jones, we are not going to do this. The thing you held could have hurt you, as well as a number of other people!” He yelled.

“I mean, it wasn’t hurting anyone or anything!” America retorted.

The man clenched his jaw, tilted his head skyward, and barely suppressed a string of curses that would have made England cringe.

“Listen, I know you’re at least partially aware of our top-secret experimental labs in the area, correct? I know you’re not a stupid man, Alfred. You should definitely know not to touch any of the experiment materials, especially the one that somehow ended up in the foyer. It looked like it was in the process of mutating into something else.”

America only kept smiling. He had learned a long time ago that sometimes, despite people’s accusations, it was best to play dumb.

Pretty soon, the other man must have decided that the bout of silence went on enough, because he just groaned, and turned to one of the men in black beside him.

“Secure the perimeter. Search everything within a one hundred foot radius for the creature.”

America’s mouth fell open.

“What?”

“You heard me!” the other man yelled. “We cannot allow the thing to get away, and since you are going to remain stubborn, we’re just going to have to do this the hard way.”

America could not stop his eyes from frantically looking around him. He hoped and prayed that Canada had the foresight to morph back into a fly, because America certainly was not ready to explain this one (not to mention that he had to remember that nobody could be trusted, not even his own secret agents -- any number of them could be Controllers).

When one of the men started walking towards the patch of bushes Canada was hiding in, America used his loudness to his advantage.

“Hey, something moved from over there!” He yelled and pointed in the opposite direction.

Every single set of eyes as well as every cocked gun whirled around to face that direction. America smirked to himself. The old trick never failed.

“It’s just a squirrel, boss,” somebody said.

Luckily, when the men’s attention had returned to their search, they skipped over the patch of bushes.

America continued watching the agents carefully, just in case he had to make a run for it. He barely consciously registered slapping a fly away from his face until thought-speak blew up in his head.

<Hey!> An unmistakably familiar voice yelled.

America’s eyes widened.

<I’ll have you know that the reason I had to demorph and caused a scene back there was because someone else did the exact same thing you just did, and actually hit me,> Canada grumbled, <and then splattered my fly guts all over the floor.>

 _Oh my god,_ America thought.

<So I knew I was probably going to die, and demorphed to save myself.>

 _Dear lord, Canada,_ America wanted to say, and couldn’t.

<Well. I know you can’t exactly respond to me right now. I’ll just casually sit on your shoulder until we go back inside.>

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until over half an hour later that the men in black simply gave up and decided the area was clear. Of course, none of them really got off America’s back about it, and kept sending him glares as they walked back towards the house. America sheepishly smiled at them the best he could, but he knew deep down that he was going to be interrogated later on. That might prove difficult...

<Hey, is Russia here yet? Wait, nevermind, you can’t answer.

When they opened the doors to the main foyer, they all saw a mob of janitors disinfecting the area Canada had been in.

“They’re so paranoid,” America muttered to himself.

Luckily, most of the commotion was focused on the contaminated spot on the carpet, so America and Canada were able to slip into the maze of hallways easily.

“I found him,” America whispered, “In the bathrooms.”

<You did? Wow. Where is he now?> Canada asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Canada groaned. America rolled his eyes.

“Anyways, I need to go find my boss,” America said.

And so the two journeyed through the hallways until they happened upon the president, who was being fawned over by no less than a dozen people.

“Sir, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fi--”

“The thing didn’t touch you, did it?”

“I told you--”

“Do you have any guess as to how the creature got to where it did, considering our reputation for safety and security?”

“I--”

“Guys, whoa, whoa,” America said, pushing past the people surrounding his boss, “It’s perfectly fine. He’s fine.”

He was met with accusatory looks from everyone. But it didn’t matter, since he had already given the president enough time to slowly back out of the crowd and declare his safety before swiftly absconding from the room.

<And there he goes. By the way, I can’t really see anything,> Canada interrupted.

“Shh,” America shushed the fly on his shoulder (and his mind didn’t even back up to think about the fact that he had literally just shushed a fly).

Right then something flew into his face, and America swatted at it in frustration.

<Hey, hey! It’s me!> Came the distinct thought-speak voice of another nation.

<There you are!>

“Finally,” America muttered.

<Your boss went that way. I’m after him, don’t worry. You should catch up,> Russia said, and before America could even contemplate what was going on the little insect had zoomed off after the president.

America simply sighed.

<Are you going to do in-person surveillance, or...>

“I’ll be deleting all the security camera footage Russia got himself in earlier,” he whispered.

<Alright. Well, I’m off too. See you in a while,> Canada said, and with that, he too, was quickly gone.

America groaned, switched his direction, and began heading towards the top secret security station. It looked like today would be an interesting day. He could only guess what was waiting in store for him tomorrow, and the day after.

 

* * *

 

Boredom had been a problem earlier, but it really wasn’t such an issue now.

But that was only because America was doing the most interesting spy-mission-esque stuff he had done in _years._

He was currently sitting on the sink countertop of the restroom closest to the security footage area, using his own personal(ly modified) laptop to hack into his own systems. Now that he thought about it, there was something strange about the experience, hacking into one’s own government’s systems, that is, but it was almost soothingly therapeutic. America told himself it was because he hadn’t done anything of the sort properly since the Cold War days, and that had been decades ago. And he was all about that kind of excitement.

“Hmm,” he said aloud as he stared down at the page.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, rapidfire typing noises resounding in a way that surely made him look badass, if only anyone was actually looking at him. (If he were to have anyone looking at him, he would prefer it to be a certain green eyed, thick-eyebrowed nation with a temper as adorable as -- and no, no, what even was that thought, he was so not going to think about this, not now.)

A click.

The loading symbol flashed at the center of the screen.

And then…

“Yes!” America chanced a quiet yell of joy when the video feed and storage popped up.

Now, only to filter through the videos to casually edit out any figures running into the bathroom from a secret storage closet that didn’t pop up on the map.

America was pretty sure he had a good idea of the exact location of the storage closet Russia had described. For one, it had to be near the bathrooms they had escaped into. And if that was true, then it should be right around this hallway…

Wait a minute.

His hands stopped moving. He stared down at the screen in shock.

There were no cameras pointing at the specified location in that hallway. None. America quickly looked through the video storage and feed, and confirmed that fact. No cameras facing the mysterious storage closet.

As if that wasn’t suspicious enough.

 _How had the security system even gotten away with leaving such a huge swath of the hallway unmonitored?_ Whoever placed the security systems around the area could not possibly have gotten an okay from whatever government superior had okayed the security cameras because there was no way this even came close to passing the careful standards America knew his government had set for video security. But if the Yeerks/Controllers were really able to get away with stuff like this, then it explained a lot. It looked like someone with a lot of power really did manipulate the system so that even the cameras wouldn’t capture anyone walking into the closet and down the mysterious underground stairwell.

Welp. He didn’t need to see anymore to know.

Whoever it the mysterious Controller they were chasing was had access to the camera system. And whoever it was was powerful and sneaky enough to get away with removing an entire field of vision from the security system without anyone noticing…

...that is, if everyone else wasn’t a Controller.

 _Oh no_ , America thought, _what if the entire security agent field is full of Controllers?_

Drat. They had only been doing surveillance on the most prominent political figures, not the security guards and the secret service.

America facepalmed.

Well, there was only one surefire way to find out who was infested and who wasn’t. The only thing America and his team could do now was plant someone in front of that closet door for three days, and find out who entered it.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, listen up guys. From now on, two of us are going to continue our standard surveillance mission, but one of us is going to have to sit in front of the mysterious closet for three days, until we’ve contacted the others and reported our first confirmed Yeerk underground pool complex, or whatever Tony called it,” America announced.

His small audience of Canada and Russia obediently listened to him, as they sat on the couch in his living room.

Canada had been briefed on Russia’s discovery not too long ago, and they were discussing the next step of the mission. America had decided to use the camera security system to his advantage for an hour as all three nations took a break, before they would head back to the White House in morph.

“So who’s going to do it?”

Silence for the third or fourth or maybe twenty first time.

Then, a voice spoke up.

“I’ll do it!” Russia said. “I found the place, and I find it fitting that I shall be the one to watch over it as well.”

“Okay, sure,” America replied.

Even more silence.

“Well, I guess we should video call the others,” Canada piped up.

“They’re probably all busy, though,” Russia said.

“Oh yeah. That’s a problem.”

“Why don’t we just email or text them? Why don’t we do something normal?” America suggested.”

“Sure?”

“Wait a minute, none of our methods are very secure. You said that anyone could be a Controller, correct?” Russia said, his tone steadily growing darker.

“Yeah.”

“And the Yeerks probably have better technology than us, anyway, because they’ve managed to achieve space travel and land on Earth. It wouldn’t be a problem for them to somehow hack into anything they desired, and if they happened to find our video logs or conversations, we’re doomed.”

Well _fuck._

“I can’t believe I never thought about that,” America whispered. His face paled in horror.

“Well, it can’t be too big of a problem, since you have your alien friend on your side,” Russia added.

“Oh right,” America said.

He wasn’t sure if Tony’s hacking and signal tracing skills were better than the Yeerks’, but there was no one else to rely on. He supposed he would have to ask the gray alien sometime.

“I’ll go call him and ask him to put some kind of proxy on all our communication lines. I’m sure he can do it wirelessly. Or whatever. Tony’s weird,” America suggested.

“You go and do that.”

“Okay. Why don’t you guys fly back to the house while I call Tony?” he said, then paused, then added, “And I’ll check to see if any of the others are online. Let them know about the mysterious janitor’s closet and staircase and whatever.”

“So we’re still going to tell the others? Are you sure you don’t want to scan it a little further in case it’s just a false alarm?” Canada wondered.

Another “hmm” and a bunch of mumbling later, America closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I think we’re going to have to. I don’t know why, but I have a very bad feeling about that staircase, and since we can only do surveillance on it for so long and we can’t actually infiltrate it unless the others get here…” he let the thought hang there, unfinished.

Canada and Russia exchanged looks, and then shrugged.

“That’s fine with me,” Russia said, though he still looked a bit worried. This mission just wasn’t going as smoothly as hoped.

“We’ll be flying back, then,” Canada reminded them.

America looked around the room, and thought for a moment. It didn’t seem that there was anything else to say.

“Alright. Bye, guys.”

America turned his back to his fellow nations to give them some privacy while they morphed. The window they had entered through was already open, so he didn’t need to do anything else. He whipped out his handy phone from his backpack, dialed, and pressed the phone to his ear, all while the sound of cracking bones and shifting skin resounded behind him.

By the time he was done, the others were long gone. The only sign of their presence in the room earlier were the feathers that had fallen onto the floor.

Great. Now only to check to see how the other nations were doing. Perhaps some of them were still on their missions, hopefully on a break or something. The ones who weren’t could always get the news from word of mouth from their peers (which usually ended up being the best way to spread information in the end anyway).

As for Tony… America knew that Tony was a fast worker. Once given a request, the little grey alien could implement whatever technology he had into whatever else was named in a matter of seconds. By now America’s laptop was probably unhackable even by himself, and America was one of the best hackers he knew, if not the very best!

He opened up Skype on his laptop and scrolled through his list of contacts. Hmm. There were only two people online… and one of them was China, who was supposedly always online but never actually was (China was the type of person who would read everything in a group chat and never respond), so chances were he wouldn’t be there to hear America’s announcement.

Which meant that the only other person was…

America’s breath caught in his throat.

England.

America involuntarily gulped.

It wasn’t like he didn’t like England or anything. It was just that something felt off between them, like something had changed, or _something_ . Ugh. He had no words to describe his feelings on the matter. In fact, he had _no_ feelings on the matter, and he was ready to assure that to everyone.

But now that he was sitting by himself in a quiet room with no work or anything else to distract him, he had time to think.

His first thought was that yeah, his relationship with England was pretty complicated (and oh dear is he thinking about relationships now? That can’t be so he can’t allow his mind to start going off because it would never stop) and perhaps, as delicate as their weird friendship-closest-allies-partners thing was, maybe… something could be different (oh god he’s not thinking this is he no way oh god).

He shook his head to clear it of all weird, sideline thoughts.

England was his friend and one of his closest allies. Nothing less, nothing more.

That was really all there was to say on the matter.

So it shouldn’t be weird for America to Skype him, alone, privately, and tell him about their latest development in secret mission attack plans, before anyone else? _Right?_ Right. He sure hoped so. His confidence level was pretty solid, but at the rate things were changing nowadays, he couldn’t always guarantee that he could maintain an unflustered facade.

Yet flashes of intense green eyes and a concerned voice only made America feel weirder.

Why was he having some sort of mental breakdown now? Nothing was wrong! Look, he was going to Skype England and it would be perfectly normal and everything would be okay.

He clicked on England’s profile picture.

He clicked the video call button.

He waited.

And waited.

Why was he so nervous? He really needed to stop chewing on his fingernails (England used to berate him for it, saying “You’ll get sick!” or “That’s disgusting!” or something else equally England-esque) and also calm down.

The video successfully connected, and of course the first thing America was greeted to was the sight of those same eyes. His stomach accidentally did several small flips in a row.

“Hello, America. Is there something you needed?” And that same calm voice, accent and everything (a darker, more giddy part of America’s mind was suddenly hooked to that accent and kept thinking about it, replaying the words over and over again in his mind--)

“O-Oh, uh, yeah. I did have something to tell you. It was. Um,” America declared, then looked away as he realized he lost his train of thought, then remembered what he was going to say, then looked up again, “So our mission revealed that my government maybe isn’t as spotless as I thought it was.”

England stared for a moment as he processed the words. Then his eyes darkened, and he groaned as he lifted a hand to rub at the dark circles under his eyes.

“Oh no.”

“Yeah,” America admitted, frowning.

“I’m guessing you originally wanted to call all of us so we could do a joint attack or something?” England asked.

“Yeah, that was my original plan. Although it doesn’t look like the others are going to be able to get the news until at least a day later, am I right?”

“Possibly. As of now France is doing the surveillance while I’m taking a quick break. I’m sure the others are well into their missions, and, seeing as none of them are online, probably won’t be around to checking for your calls until several hours later. The far east groups’ local times are already well into the night, so I wouldn’t bother them. They have enough trouble staying awake as it is,” England mused at the thought. “Would you care to tell me the details of your discovery?”

America took a deep breath. This was going to be hard.

“Russia supposedly found a secret janitor’s closet, but it wasn’t really a janitor’s closet. It led to what he called an underground staircase. He also claimed he could hear faint screaming from the place the staircase led down to. It doesn’t sound too much like one of my labs, so the only other possibility is that it’s one of those Yeerk pool complexes, or whatever Tony even calls them.”

England raised an eyebrow.

“Russia did this alone? The rest of you weren’t with him during this part of the mission?” He asked.

“Well, no, but I checked the security cameras there and everything and it all makes sense,” America responded.

“Hmm. I guess you’ll have to do some further surveillance on the area before we call in everyone else to do an attack,” England said, “And I doubt we can let the rest of your government know, because that would probably cause mass hysteria. And I hope you don’t take any offense to this, but we’ve already established that no one can be trusted, not even the higher-ups in our own governments.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll help spread the word to France, but for the time being, you should go back to focusing on your mission. Try calling the others a few hours from now. Good luck,” England ordered in that tone of empowerment of his.

“Thanks. You too,” America said, offering a small smile.

England gave a small wave as he closed the video feed.

America groaned. This was going to be rough.

He hoped that England was okay on his mission. And now the fact that he could have asked England how he was doing hit America full force in the face. Why was he so impolite? How had he forgotten to ask such a simple question? He could have even said something as basic as ‘how’s your mission going?’ but no, he didn’t, because America was an inconsiderate jerk who didn’t treat his friends nicely.

Inner ramblings aside, he hoped England hadn’t gotten hurt in any way, like Canada had.

Oh yeah. Speaking of Canada. America had better go back to join the others.

He made sure his stuff was safely tucked away under his covers (he liked to hide his laptop under his pillow sometimes; for some reason he felt it was safer), looked over to the still-open window letting in warm summer air, shed the loose clothes he had claimed earlier upon his arrival at his house, and stood there, in front of the window, ready to morph.

He concentrated, and as always, the crunching sounds happened, and so did the shrinking, and the enlargement of arm hairs which quickly merged into feathers, and his feet were splitting into toes, and there went his mouth and nose, and poof, his glasses were gone, but it didn’t matter, because his eyesight was awesome anyway.

America, once more a bald eagle, hopped up onto the windowsill (for once thankful that he had removed the screen earlier), squeezed through the opening, and took off into the great blue sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know all the recent chapters I've published feel a lot like filler material, but don't worry, the plot is coming! I just have to drop a few more plot twists, which may or may not be resolved by the end of this fic, and if they aren't, they'll be continued in the next fic of the series...
> 
> I'm, like, practically begging for comments at this point. Please guys. They are my source of income. My lifeblood. I'm dying over here.


	8. The Beginning of Something Great...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Canada stumbles across something none of the other nations had expected to see, things start getting a little weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested background music: [Code Name Vivaldi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09RUuTAM2H0) by ThePianoGuys.

America groaned.

A glance at the clock helpfully hung on the far wall told him that it was exactly one minute past noon.

He returned to his previous task of carrying papers around for his boss, and his tired and quite delirious mind started pondering over the only thing left to ponder over, which was why people were always doing so much paperwork. It was all so pointless. Why was paperwork still a thing when people could easily make work digitized, like most other things nowadays? America sighed to himself. Perhaps if he complained to the president long enough, he would consider maybe possibly encouraging more technological and digital expansion…

But back to more relevant topics.

Such as the next step of the mission.

Today was the third day of their 24-hour surveillance project, and America, once again, was ready to fall flat on his face and pass out from boredom and exhaustion. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your opinion), though, there wasn’t much to be found and not much to do, either. America had called the others before and let them know about the situation, and then that had been it. He left them to continue their missions, and went back to continuing his own.

In about two hours, he was to call England again and update him on their plans if needed, or maybe England would be the one updating him. Given the fact that England usually took charge in times of dire need, America didn’t feel too pressured to be responsible. Either way, someone would call the other person, and information and updates would be exchanged.

But for now he was stuck. Standing here. Holding paper.

At long last his boss finished his lovely conversation with some other random official America didn’t care to figure out the name of and motioned for America to follow him.

America did so, and instead of his usual lively gait, he only dragged his feet through the halls, much to his president’s dismay.

“Alfred, is something wrong?” He asked, and gave the personification a genuine look of concern.

America tried his best to smile and act like everything was fine, even though everything was not. He was so tired.

“Nope, nothing’s wrong! I’m just a little tired, that’s all!”

His president nodded slowly, then seemed to realize something, and gave him a look. It was the kind of look that a parent would give to a child after finding out that that child broke something and refused to tell the parent.

“Did you stay up late playing video games again?” The president demanded (in a much less gentle, much more authoritative kind of tone).

“What? No, no…” America waved his hands in front of his face as if to shoo away the possibility.

And he hadn’t. He had only slept for a few hours at a time, before taking a night shift of further surveillance (in fly form), and then going back to sleep.

His boss merely sighed.

“I know you like playing fictional military based action games, but this is becoming a serious issue,” he stated.

“I wasn’t playing games though!”

“Am I going to have to ground you?”

“What?”

“I’m serious, Alfred.”

“You’re great and all, but please don’t.”

“Fine, but only if you agree to get a decent amount of sleep so that you can remain a healthy nation,” the president whispered angrily.

America only nodded to keep his boss calm. He had seen the man annoyed before, and he didn’t want to incur that kind of wrath again.

They kept walking, and finally America was able to drop off the giant stack of paper (on some poor employee’s desk). Although carrying the paper had not been an issue for him, it had gotten rather annoying after a while.

“If you’re so tired, why don’t you go take a break?” The president spoke up again.

“Oh, uh, I don’t really need to…”

“No, no, I insist. Go take a break. Actually, why don’t you take a nap or something?”

“But I’m fine!”

“Just do it,” the man ordered.

America groaned and generally made a very big deal out of being forced to take an afternoon nap like a five-year-old. He was two hundred something, not five! This was merely humiliating.

In the nick of time, a fly buzzed past his face, swirled around his head for a moment, and landed on his shoulder. America turned away from the throngs of people and his president, and began to walk back through the hallway he had come through.

<It’s me,> Canada said.

“Mmmhmm,” America replied.

<I came to relieve you from your post. You can go relieve Russia from his. He hasn’t demorphed in something like an hour and fifty minutes, and I don’t think he wants to become a fly for the rest of his immortal life.>

 _Oh._ That was actually just a tad worrisome.

While Canada flew off his shoulder, America speedwalked towards that particular hallway without the surveillance cameras and with the secret janitor’s closet unknown to anyone except Controllers.

_Where is that darn fly?_

“Ey, I’m here,” America whispered.

Not too long after his announcement, a fly zipped past his nose.

<Ah, you’re here so I can go demorph?> Russia asked.

“Yeah. Go, go, quickly.”

<Good luck! And don’t worry, I know where the bathrooms are,> Russia said, and with that, he had buzzed off in the direction of the giant bathrooms America had initially found him in on the first day of the mission.

Now, the man was alone.

Luckily, America was not here incognito like the others, so he didn’t see the need to morph. He merely needed to pretend he was a typical teenager, loitering around random hallways, probably playing on his phone or something. Actually, that worked quite well. He pulled out his smartphone and turned it on, and began fiddling with it. If anyone else came by, he could still identify them while looking nonchalant at the same time.

Fifteen minutes later, he was already bored of checking to see if any of the other personifications were online (not that he would be able to video call them in the middle of broad daylight, anyway) and opened up one of his many game apps.

The game was enough to distract him for a little less than two hours. At one point, he thought he heard someone walking down the length of the hallway, but when he turned, he didn’t see anyone there. So still no Controllers. Weird. It had been almost three days since the mission began, and they still hadn’t found a trace of any of the people (because there were likely more than one) who were infested. He didn’t know who that person who had been walking by was, but even if that person had seen him, at least he wouldn’t look out of place with his phone.

Not too long after, another fly landed on his phone screen.

<Hey, it’s me. We’re continuing the rotation. And if I remember correctly, you said earlier that you wanted to do a quick video call with England to get any necessary updates, right?> Canada asked, his little fly face turning about.

“Yeah,” America whispered.

Canada flew off and landed on the far wall of the hallway, and America put his phone away and began walking.

 

* * *

 

When he reached the private sanctuary of his room, he retrieved his laptop from under his pillow, turned it on, and impatiently tapped on the keyboard as it booted up. For a supposedly technologically advanced device, it wasn’t much faster than it used to be.

Finally.

He clicked on the call button and waited for a connection to a grumpy brit over three thousand miles away.

Green eyes flashed on the screen.

“Hello, America.”

America frowned a little. _Always so stiff and formal as usual._ England really needed to loosen up a bit.

“I, uh, don’t really have any other news at this point. Everything has been pretty swell,” America said, and the cheeriness of his tone surprised him.

England stayed silent for a moment before speaking.

“Well, actually, _I_ do. I’ve been thinking that since you already found one of the targeted areas of Yeerk activity, you don’t really need to complete your surveillance before we attack the area. Tony managed to call me earlier, and although he was as vulgar as ever, he said something about you being right about there being a pool under your White House.”

“Pff, as if you’re any less vulgar than he is!” America exclaimed.

“What?”

“You said that Tony was as vulgar as ever. But you swear, like, twice as much as he does,” he giggled.

“America. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” England demanded, his voice low.

“Not enough.”

“Your deliriousness aside, we’re probably going to have to change the mission plan.”

“How so?” America asked.

“We’re going to have to do an upscale attack on the pool. All of us, even the others. By the way, I’ve contacted them, and they’re ready and already on their way. Expect us to all be at your place in a few hours. We’ve coordinated our flights to land at roughly the same time,” England said.

America opened his mouth to protest but was interrupted.

“Don’t worry about telling us where the closet is. Tony apparently also knew its location, and told me earlier.”

America raised an eyebrow.

“Why would Tony act like he doesn’t care, and then suddenly turn around and tell you something he could have told us earlier and saved us from wasting all that time and effort?” America wondered, “And also shouldn’t you have called me and told me about this yesterday?”

“I’m not sure why Tony did it, but that’s not an issue now. You know that I hate him, but he seemed very urgent about the whole thing. He told me it was absolutely necessary to call up everyone else and attack the Yeerk pool. I’ve began to wonder what it is that’s so time sensitive…” England mused, and he quickly trailed off.

America pondered about this for a moment. Although Tony’s move was a bit sudden, and it would have been wise to talk the plan out first, the alien hadn’t lied to him yet, and if England’s judgement said that Tony was right, then he had better trust both of them.

“I guess you’re right,” he admitted.

“You’re okay with this?” England inquired.

“Yeah.”

“You do have a battle morph, right?”

“Bison, remember?” America said and winked at the screen.

England was completely unaffected. He didn’t even blush and stutter (and America really liked it when he made England do that -- wait, what?).

“I have to go. By the way, we’ve finished up our surveillance, every single one of us. As I said before, we’ll be at your place in a few hours. Prepare for war. Because that’s what it is, now.”

And with that ominous warning, the video feed suddenly went dark, leaving a very confused, very irritated America alone in the dimness of the room.

 

* * *

 

America looked around the room to no avail. His buddies really were gone.

 _How had it come to this_ , he wondered.

After coming back to the house from his video call with England, he had tried and tried again to find either Canada or Russia, but he had not seen a single fly come up to him. It was as if they had just disappeared.

_Weird._

A darker and less optimistic part of America’s mind told him that something had probably gone wrong. Of course, he couldn’t exactly do anything about it besides continue to try to look for his friends, because they really, really needed to know about England’s plan.

America had learned a long time ago that miscommunication during a mission usually resulted in disaster.

_Darn it, where are they?_

Unfortunately, America was the only one out of place in his environment. Everyone else just kept on working and walking around and chatting as usual. If he didn’t want to look too suspicious or anything, he would have to keep calm and carry on the mission for the time being. Hopefully he would run into the others sometime within the next few hours.

England’s warning came to him again, and he frowned. He should have asked for the exact time that everyone would be coming! Now he had no deadline to work towards, and they could be arriving at literally any moment.

He started to think about potential scenarios.

What would his president think if all of a sudden a bunch of rampant wild animals assaulted the White House? What would happen to the national security branch? What would the critics say? What would the actual Controllers think?

Either way, he couldn’t call England back, because he was most likely already on his way. And if America knew anything for sure, it was that England liked to be on time. The only thing he could do was wait. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still carry on the mission.

An idea began to form in his head.

Wouldn’t it be much easier to find the others if he could communicate in thought-speak? And he had to be in morph in order to use thought-speak, so…

America looked around. Nobody was paying attention to him. His boss wasn’t too far away, and he could still do the surveillance easily enough as a fly. All he would have to do was duck into the nearest restrooms real quick, go fly, and come back out. No biggie.

With his half-hearted plan already made up in his mind, America turned around and headed towards the end of the hall, where a helpful engraved plate on the wall told him that he could find the bathrooms right around the corner. As soon as he had safely locked himself in one of the stalls, he prepared himself for morphing.

Of course, as always, the transformation was creepy. But man, was he thankful that morphing didn’t hurt! Just seeing his arms go all crusty and his vision bubble off was enough to tell him that if Tony’s weird stolen morphing technology didn’t somehow numb all the pain he would be screaming, if he could even scream anymore. In fact, he’d probably pass out first.

Dark thoughts aside, though, he was now capable of thought-speaking and hopefully finding the others.

<Yo, guys! Where are you?>

No response.

 _Darn._ They could either be too far away or somehow unable to answer, but his mind really didn’t want to acknowledge or deal with the possibility of that second option being real.

He decided to fly out of the bathrooms and wander around the place as he kept calling for his friends. Hopefully they would hear him. Hopefully.

He was pretty sure he had run into the kitchen, because overwhelming smells of tantalizingly tempting food began to waft over his little fly body. Every single one of his strands of fly DNA told him to fly to the food source immediately because there was eating to be done! America had to forcefully fight down that instinct to just start slurping up that sauce or whatever it was. He was on a mission, and he needed to find his friends. He couldn’t let himself get distracted in a crucial moment like this!

<Guys!>

<...rica?> A faint thought-speak voice responded.

America gasped internally. Someone had responded! But it sounded like they were almost out of range, and he couldn’t quite identify who’s voice it was.

<Why were you guys gone?> America tried asking.

<...ound… someth… uspi… ous…> The person continued.

America may not have been a good codebreaker, but he was fairly certain that whoever it was had just found something suspicious.

<Where are you? I’m coming!> He yelled.

<Oka…>

It looked like the only thing he could do now was just fly through the White House until the thought speak voice got louder and he was therefore closer. Something told him that whatever scene he was about to run into would require him to be suited for spying. So he would remain a fly until this whole issue was resolved.

America kept on flying through the house, though he was never really too sure if he was actually going anyway. The fact that he couldn’t exactly see more than maybe a foot in front of him didn’t help.

<Are you still there?> He said.

<Yes! ...m hang… n…>

America willed his little fly wings to beat faster.

The hallway he was probably currently flying in was mysteriously quiet. Maybe he was getting close!

<Am I close?> America tried, again.

<I can hear you very clearly. I’m in some sort of room with two people, who I’m pretty sure are Controllers, but I’ll give you the spiel about them later. Kind of busy listening in on a conversation right now. Sorry.>

It was Canada who had been doing the spying. Where the heck was Russia?

Suddenly, sound vibrations hit him. They were clearly adult voices, coming from a little bit to his right. Stiffly, almost like he wasn’t doing it himself, America flew towards the voices.

He was fortunate that flies could fit under the small space between the door and the ground. Because when he got into the room, he came upon very clearly irritated whispering.

<I’m here!>

<Good,> Canada thought-whispered.

America strained himself in an attempt to catch as much of the conversation as possible.

“...not fully initiated yet. We need a little more time,” the first person said.

There was movement. An arm shifting position, fists angrily clenched and shaking.

“We need to finish this immediately. Security is tight. We have to move quickly before people begin to get suspicious,” the second one argued.

_That didn’t sound suspicious, not at all._

“I trust you dealt with the cameras and recorders?” Second guy continued, waving his hand around.

<Welp. That pretty much confirms everything,> America said.

<Yeah.>

“Anyways, the Visser is not going to be happy when he hears about this,” guy number one interrupted, “So we must spend more time and get the job done right.”

“That won’t work! You know what happened the last time we didn’t come to him with results on time!”

“Yes, but at the rate we are going we are not going to be able to finish the operation, and either way he will not be satisfied.”

There was silence for a moment, in which both of the people appeared to be in deep thought.

America, unfortunately, could not identify their faces unless he went into a morph that had better eyesight. The frustration of not knowing who was guilty all along was horrible. He vowed to follow these people outside when they finally left to keep an eye on them, make sure they didn’t do anything to anyone, or maybe potentially discover other Yeerk hideouts.

<What are we going to do?> America wondered.

<I don’t know, you’re the one who supposedly knows everything!> Canada retorted.

<What? How do you expect me to magically know what to do in a situation like this? I just found out my own government’s been infiltrated!>

<You should have known better than to brag to everyone that your government was completely incorrupt,> Canada sighed.

America sighed inwardly too.

“We really cannot afford to keep delaying the project like this. We must go. It’s not safe to talk here, even if all recording devices have been disabled. Sooner or later one of the humans will notice. They aren’t as dumb as the Visser thinks they are.”

Upon hearing that, both America and Canada were filled with a surge of pride.

The two people stopped talking, and started moving. America and Canada both hovered around their sides, unsure where they were going, but definitely determined to follow them.

<Are we just going to keep flying around them or something?> America wondered.

<I don’t know, probably. Wait, what if they see us and slap us? I already told you how that happened to me once and that I would never like to experience being splattered all over the floor again,> Canada said.

<Whatever, I’m going.>

America took care to not get to close to the man’s face, for fear of getting hit and then dying. He had seen Canada’s almost-fate, and he wasn’t ready to have the same happen to him.

They continued moving, and America still wasn’t sure where they were going. This development had been too sudden for him to think up any smart things to do, so he supposed that all he could really do was just go along with it. Then, he remembered that he was supposed to be watching his president. Oh no! He hoped the man was okay. There was no way he could abandon these two confirmed guilty Controllers, not now!

Darn it, where was Russia?

<Alright, this is not working. One of us is going to have to morph into something different that has better eyesight. How about a mouse?>

<A mouse?> Canada asked, <Do you even have a mouse morph?>

<I do! But I can’t change morphs now, not while we’re moving!>

<I really can’t help you there. I just hope Russia will show up and save us from our agony…>

<Ugh! If only there was some way to go directly from one morph to another instead of having to demorph first,> America growled.

Meanwhile, the two mysterious Controllers had stopped moving.

America nearly flew into one’s back, but stopped himself in time.

<Oh, it looks like my Controller is going in a different direction. I’ll follow him, while you follow the one you’re following,> Canada said.

<Wait, we shouldn’t split up!>

<Too late! We have to keep both of these people under surveillance, and there are only two of us. I’ll try to keep thought-speaking with you, though we might leave your radius!>

<This was such a bad idea!> America yelled.

<I’m sorry, okay?> Canada yelled in response.

America’s Controller started moving again, and he had to keep up. Then he decided that he didn’t need to keep hovering around the guy; he could just land on his back or something. Hopefully the guy’s suit was thick enough so that he couldn’t feel the fly sitting on his back…

<Russia, where are you?> Canada screeched from the distance.

America sighed inwardly. Not only was Russia apparently never with them when important developments were happening, but he never told them why he wasn’t there in advance, either. Now America and Canada were split up, and who knew where they were going?

<It just got dark,> Canada reported.

<Can you still see?>

<Kind of, not really. It’s really dim.>

<How about now?> America said again, after a few seconds had passed.

<Nope. Wait, I hear something.>

America did not say anything in response. Just what room was this guy going to, anyway? America was certain that he knew every single room in the White House, and all of them were always being used all the time. None of them should have their lights off.

<Oh my god,> Canada suddenly interrupted, voice meek.

<What is it?>

<There’s screaming. I hear screaming.>

America, even as a fly, felt his blood run cold. Just where was Canada, anyway?

<Can you try to describe where you are? What it looks like?> America prompted in the hopes of getting a good description of the room. When he was human again, he would find out who had snuck into the house and made such a secretive room, where apparently there was torture going on.

<I can’t really see that well, but it’s dim, and the screams are echoing everywhere. It’s like we’re in a long, dark hallway, or maybe a tube, or something…>

Canada’s description of the place replayed over in America’s mind for a few moments. It was only later, when his brain made the connection, that he suddenly knew. And he suddenly grew very, very weary.

<Canada, you just passed the secret closet Russia was talking about. The Controller you are following just went down the staircase we never explored,> America said, slowly, voice shaking.

<...oh shit.>

<Oh man, stay calm! I wish I could join you, but I’m still following this guy, and I can’t exactly leave him alone!>

America really needed to rush in to help Canada. It was a mistake to not have explored the mysterious staircase from the janitor’s closet earlier. Now they were being thrown into it, and they didn’t know what to do.

<Oh my goodness. It’s huge!> Canada interrupted America’s thoughts again.

<What? What is it?>

<It’s a huge chamber. I can’t even see, but from what I can vaguely hear it has to be at least the size of a football field, if not bigger,> Canada continued.

<But what is it?>

<I’m no… ure…>

<I’m losing you!>

<W….t?>

<Canada!> America yelled, this time in frustration.

<...od!> Canada replied.

<What?!>

<Need… ee…s!> The voice was faint, yet filled with horror.

In that moment, America made a split second decision. Yes, he was still technically supposed to be following the Controller he was sitting on. But Canada’s Controller had gone somewhere else, where an even bigger development was being made. And Canada, whatever he was seeing, sounded about as terrified as he could get. Something was wrong. Something very big.

He could always come back to find this guy later. Canada needed support.

WIthout another moment of hesitation, he launched himself into the air, and began buzzing his way towards where he instinctively knew the closet was.

Somehow, despite all his disadvantages as a fly, he found it, and he found the staircase entrance. Something also told him that whatever he was going to run into, he needed to have better eyesight for to be able to make better decisions. Canada was practically blind, and that was never a good thing when one was deep in enemy territory.

He demorphed.

The closet was empty of any security cameras, and so was the staircase entrance. Whoever these Yeerks were, whatever they were like, they were certainly very foolish not to put security cameras or something else in their hideouts. America used that to his advantage.

Mice didn’t have good enough eyesight to see far into a chamber of the size Canada described. The only other thing he had a morph for that was small, easily looked over, and had decent eyesight was his lizard morph, some species of skink or anole that he couldn’t remember the name of.

America pictured its scaly green skin in his mind, its small limbs and toes and long tail, and pretty soon, he could feel himself shrinking. He heard crackling noises, and watched, even through the dim light, as his skin wrinkled and split into separate scales, which spread all over his body. His spine elongated. His limbs shortened. He lost his glasses, though his eyesight only worsened slightly.

When he was finished, he looked over at the entrance to the dreaded staircase that awaited him.

And then his little lizard legs propelled him at an astonishing speed for such a size directly off the first stair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, I still haven't run out of motivation for this fic. How awesome is that?? My past self would be so proud of me, I'm sure.
> 
> EDIT: This fic may have to go on an extra week-long hiatus, or at least until I'm able to finish up the next chapter, which might not happen in time for our usual planned update because of homework and other various stuff trying to make a mess of my life. Sorry. Not that it matters anyway, since almost nobody reads this fic.


	9. ...and Something Terrible (Underground)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America, in lizard morph, goes into the Yeerk pool and sees a lot of disturbing stuff. Unfortunately, when he tries to find Canada, he gets himself captured by an egotistical Visser who believes America is actually an Andalite in morph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the extra delay, again. But I guess you guys don't really care, since almost none of you read this anyways. *bitter sulking*

America kept running through the staircase, descending ever deeper underground. The stairs must have gone on forever. He was beginning to get tired of having to jump off a stair, fall for a moment, land on the next one, and repeat the whole process over again. But as he gradually neared what was probably the chamber Canada was talking about, his ears began to pick up on some not so subtle sounds.

Most notably, the screaming.

There was a lot of screaming, as well as faint sobbing, splashing, and even background chatter, the kind of faint indistinguishable talk you hear amongst everyday citizens. But whatever it was certainly freaked America out to keep him going, even if he had already been running down stairs for at least several minutes by then.

Then, he emerged into the light, and suddenly, everything made sense.

When Canada had called the chamber huge, it was an understatement. Canada’s fly eyesight had not given him the ability to see the true extent of the area. The entire chamber, if it could even be called that, was more of a massive cavern. It had to be at least several football fields in length and width. From where America was, a lizard, on the ground, he couldn’t even see the ends of the walls.

 _Oh my goodness,_ he thought, _this thing must be as big as half the city!_

What he could see, however, were many humanoid shadows that walked to and fro. Upon looking slightly upwards, he noticed a line had formed far off in the distance. To what, he could not see. He decided to start moving.

Despite the fact that lizards were not invisible to the naked eye, no one seemed to notice him. In fact, everyone seemed like they had a place to go, and they were all in a hurry to do so. Most of the people walking around looked like they were late to a business meeting or something. But that was when an especially large figure’s shadow loomed over America, and his lizardly instincts told him to immediately freeze.

He cautiously looked up, and had about as much of a heart attack as one would expect when gazing upon an actual, real, dangerous alien for the first time.

It was at least three feet taller than the standard person, with green scaly skin like that of a dinosaur. And it was covered in horns that doubled as sharp blades which could no doubt cut through a piece of metal two feet thick. It looked reptilian, but in a way that screamed 90s science fiction. America was at a loss of words.

Subconsciously, he knew that someone had told him about this alien before. _But who had it been? And what was this creature’s name?_

He didn’t get to finish his thought when the creature started moving again and nearly squashed him.

America scrambled out of the way in the nick of time. He decided to keep moving. It wasn’t safe to stay still in one place, and either way, it wasn’t as if one tiny lizard would cause a panic in such a large group.

There was a gap in the milling people all around the level, and America momentarily saw the wall of the closer side of the cavern. There were buildings in that area, storage buildings, office buildings, and even what looked like a cafeteria. The buildings stretched all across the ground, all the way to the other side of the cavern, where America could not longer see clearly due to so many people walking around him.

He scampered along for a long time, pausing every once in a while to try to avoid being crushed into a lizard pancake by the feet of briskly walking Controllers. Slowly, though, he noticed that he was actually heading towards the source of the screaming. America prepared himself for a sight as horrifying as it could be. He came upon the line he had seen earlier, a group of human Controllers, all calm and ready.

The line stretched onto a metal pier that hung over some kind of pool. It was more like a lake than a pool, really, and it stretched through at least half of the whole cavern. But the pool-lake wasn’t filled with water. Instead, a thick and sludgy lead-gray liquid splashed around. Within the waves, something moved.

America stopped just short of the pier.

Two of the same green-bladed aliens (Hork-Bajir, they were called, his brain supplied him) stood at the end of the pier, almost as if they were guarding someone.

The next person in line stepped up, raised his arms, and was grasped by the two Hork-Bajir guards. He then bent down with their assistance, and turned his head until one ear was directly above the gray water.

_What is he doing?_

And then he saw it: something slid out of the person’s ear, and with a small ‘plunk,’ entered the liquid.

The person immediately started fighting like he would never see daylight again. He strained against the Hork-Bajir Controllers, screamed and shrieked and tried to kick them, and failed to get away.

“Let me go!”

The Hork-Bajir made no attempt at responding. They simply dragged the middle-aged man away. America watched, still suspended in a state of horror, as they neared another area of the massive cavern. Meanwhile, a second person at the end of the pier, this time a young boy, was grabbed by two new Hork-Bajir guards. When the Yeerk exited his ear, he, too, started screaming and kicking. He shrieked and cried and begged for his mom to save him.

America looked away, unable to bear the sight. But then he spotted something else. There, across from the cafeteria, was a large group of cages. Inside the cages were people, hundreds upon hundreds of them, all screaming and crying and shaking the bars of the cages and trying to get out. While some of them actively tried as hard as they could to escape, others simply sat and stared off into space, like they had no hope anymore and no longer had the energy to fight.

An overwhelming sense of despair flooded America’s heart at the sight. These were his people, being enslaved by gross mind-controlling slug aliens, and they did not deserve to suffer this fate! In that moment, he swore that he would do anything and everything in his power to stop the invasion, singlehandedly if necessary.

Before he could be noticed by the keen eyesight of the Hork-Bajir guards, he sneaked away and out of the line, running as fast as his little legs could carry him.

The sight of so many innocent people in cages had snapped him out of his reverie, and he remembered his mission now.

<Canada!> America yelled.

No answer. With the size of the complex, though, he didn’t really expect one.

Perhaps he needed to find a good place to temporarily demorph and think out the next step of his plan. He reminded himself that he was deep in enemy territory and that a single mistake would probably cost him his life. He needed to retreat to a temporary base and try to find Canada.

Canada.

_Oh my God, is he still okay?_

<Canada, please respond!>

No answer. America kept scampering around, and didn’t really realize what direction he was heading towards until the pleasant aroma of… was that food?... wafted to him. He looked up again. He was in what seemed to be a food court.

As he stood there, he saw, from one eye, a person bend over the pool, a Yeerk drop from his ear, and then that same person get up, and perfectly calmly walk over to the food court. The two Hork-Bajir guards did not even attempt to escort him. He walked perfectly calmly. It almost looked like he didn’t care that there was a mind-controlling slug in his head. It almost looked like he didn’t want to escape.

It almost looked like he was voluntarily there.

Suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Could that person, who had just calmly left without struggling, and who was not being put into a cage like the other people, be different? What designated the different places a person was sent to after the Yeerk was momentarily taken from their heads? Why the heck was there a food court in an underground cavern the size of a city?

 _How the heck has nobody noticed yet_ , America wondered, _because you would think that there had to be some kind of ground piping issue or something, and security in Washington, D.C., is as tight as ever._

Unless, of course, someone did find out, and was silenced. Or the subway system was infiltrated with Controllers. Or the cavern was super deep and nobody had bothered to check if the piping and electrical wiring underground really did go where they thought it did.

He looked back over to the food court, and a sickening feeling came over his little lizard stomach. Perhaps the smart thing to do was to get out of the way, and deal with the possibility of voluntary traitors later.

While he scrambled across the floor, every time a foot came near, his lizard brain screamed, “RUN,” because if he didn’t he would get SQUISHED and that WOULD NOT BE OKAY. And there went another foot! Quick! He dashed out of the way a millisecond before contact. Secretly, America thanked the lizard mind for having such sharp instincts, because if it was up to his dull, human (or nation, he still wasn’t really sure if national personifications were a separate species or something) brain, he would have been stepped on long ago.

Soon he had wandered into darkness. He paused, unsure of where he was, until he remembered that he had been trying to head towards the warehouses that looked like they were used for storage. And the boxes, piles of foodstuffs, and weird machinery certainly did make the building look like a storage room. It also seemed like no one was here. Plus it was dark. As far as America could tell, there were no security cameras whatsoever (strange, considering that these were aliens with insanely good technology who probably wanted to keep their invasion a secret and probably wanted good security). Either way, though, he needed to demorph and regroup himself.

When America was securely hidden behind a stack of cardboard boxes, he stopped moving, and imagined himself turning human again. Soon, the transformation started, and it was just as gruesome as ever, though maybe slightly less gruesome than a fly-human transition (which could have won some kind of award for looking like something that would win an award for having the best special effects in a horror movie).

At last he was human again, albeit naked and uncomfortably crammed between some cardboard boxes.

America then realized that what he should have done was think out his plan first before demorphing. Of course, what he needed now was a form that would give him eyesight good enough to spot something the size of a fly a quarter of a mile away. And what other animal had eyesight as good as that of a bird of prey?

There was just one tiny problem with going bald eagle, which was the fact that bald eagles were huge and would likely get seen. And if he was seen, the Yeerks would know something was wrong, because there was no way a bald eagle could end up in a giant underground cavern.

And then America had a brilliant idea. He looked up, and there just so happened to be a skylight right above his head that showed the far off ceiling of the pool chamber. It had to be at least three hundred feet high, and it was pockmarked with ventilation shafts and openings. A plan began to form in his head.

It was practically suicide, but he could try anyway.

In the off chance that nobody saw him… perhaps that spot would turn out to be a good post to slow him as great of a range of vision as possible.

America decided that yes, he was going to do it. He closed his eyes for the nth time that day, and, after surpassing a wave of exhaustion, pictured himself in his bald eagle morph. Once again, the transformation occurred, and in no logical sort of order. This time, he shrunk first, until he looked like a disproportionate garden gnome. Then the feathers began to grow, covering his whole body besides his lips and feet. When the last of his vision had improved and the last of his featherless skin had hardened, he opened his wings, and with great effort flew up and out of one of the opened glass panes.

As he kept flying, he took great care in doing so in small increments at a time, as to not get noticed. First he flew only about fifty feet up, then immediately swooped into one of the ventilation openings. America somehow miraculously fit.

He then noticed that the pipe was connected to other ventilation shafts all around the area. Some of the tunnels looked like they must have led back up to the White House, or maybe the national history museum or something (considering the sheer size of the pool, it wasn't entirely impossible). America began waddling through one that looked like it led up to a higher opening near the ceiling of the Yeerk pool.

After tedious minutes of climbing, he emerged into the light, and discovered that he was standing, or actually hanging, out of the top ventilation shaft pipe thing in the pool. When he stuck his head out and looked to the side, he discovered that at the highest point in the pool ceiling was a small hole that seemed to lead into the sky above. He swore he could see faint rays of daylight.

He looked back down, and realized he now had a perfect, flawless, unobstructed view of the entire Yeerk pool. And it truly was as large as he thought it was before. Fortunately, though, his eagle eyesight gave him the power to see even minute details no matter how far away. In fact, even though he was maybe around three hundred feet up from the floor of the pool chamber complex, he could actually see and even name the eye colors of the people walking below him.

Sometimes, America was really thankful that Mother Nature had decided to make so many of her creations so powerful.

(As a side note, perhaps one day he would invent some kind of glasses lens that could increase the normal human’s capacity to see tenfold…)

Anyway, he had better take advantage of his good position and even better vision to do a thorough scan of the place and make sure he had some sort of plan in mind. He was alone, of course, and what better task to accomplish than to find Canada? With that plan in mind, America began to twist his feathered head around as he slowly scanned the whole chamber.

One random day a long time ago, he had read that an eagle could spot a rabbit from two miles away. Unfortunately, Canada was probably still a fly, and a fly was much smaller than a rabbit. Still, though, the chamber was probably smaller than two miles across, so he shouldn’t be having any trouble.

There was the entrance he had come down from, a staircase entrance that was barely noticeable compared to the much bigger buildings and doorways all throughout the pool complex. There were other stairwell entrances spread around the walls of the chamber, too, that led in all directions. America realized that the Yeerk pool was probably connected to dozens of secret locations all around the city. What if the Yeerk pool itself could never be destroyed? What if whenever he tried to track down one person in the pool complex, that person could just escape through one of the many entrances? How in the world was America supposed to save the world from invading aliens if they could do stuff like this and not get caught?

Again, the question of just how corrupt his own government was popped up, and he tried to ignore it for the sake of his sanity.

Still more warehouses lay scattered around the perimeter of the chamber. The one he had flown out of earlier wasn’t too far away, and the gap in the roof was also still there. Down at the center of the chamber was the actual pool. By the pool were the cages he had seen earlier. By the cages was a sectioned off area that looked to be full of humans and aliens of all kinds enjoying food and TV. They were definitely uninfested, America concluded, since their behavior just didn’t seem off at all. That only meant that they were voluntary Controllers (his mind concluded grimly)… at this point he had to cut off that thought completely.

Yet he still couldn’t spot a single fly. He wasn’t really sure what he expected, to be honest. _Like yeah, I have good eyesight, but this place is huge!_

Ironically, almost immediately after he thought that, he managed to spot the one and only insect buzzing around in the entire chamber. Seriously, fate had to be playing with him.

Now only to get Canada’s attention.

<Canada!> He tried and failed because he was three hundred feet away.

Luckily, the little fly was only about forty or so feet to his right if he descended a couple hundred feet from the ceiling hideout he was in. So if he just went back down through the ventilation shafts…

A long and tedious journey later, America, still in his bald eagle form, was within the thought-speak broadcasting radius that allowed Canada to hear him. This time, his attempts at communication were a success.

<Yo, Canada!>

America watched the fly suddenly freeze in midair, presumably from hearing his voice.

<America, is that you?>

<Yeah, it’s me! I made it!>

<Can you believe this place is, well, you know…> Canada started, and trailed off.

<...actually real? Not made up?> America suggested.

<Yeah, I guess. I mean I knew that you had probably been telling the truth, since I couldn’t really deny the fact that you all gave us the power to turn into animals, but I was still kind of skeptical about the aliens invading the earth part for a while. I just figured that maybe this was actually one of your newly developed and top secret military-based technologies or something. I didn’t actually think we would find this…> Canada trailed off again.

America, despite being over eighty feet away and definitely unseen by Canada, cocked his head to the side in a gesture of understanding.

<Where did your guy go?> America said.

<My guy?>

<The guy you were supposed to follow.>

<Oh,> Canada realized, <Um.>

<Oh my god. Please tell me you didn’t somehow lose him,> America groaned and looked skyward (er actually, ceiling-ward).

<I may have lost him.>

<Canada!>

<I’m sorry!> Canada yelled.

<Now how are we supposed to know who that evil Controller is? He could be any one of these people here because we still haven’t been able to identify him! And at the end of the night, he’ll return to the White House to continue his evil plans without any interference,> America muttered.

And then silence for a good minute or two.

Both parties contemplated their next move. It would only be a matter of time before the others arrived, and in the meantime, they had better do some investigation of the area, or at least get a good understanding of how the Yeerks’ pool system worked before it was wrecked or something. It was also a good idea to find out how Yeerk hierarchy worked, or maybe about their political structure, or maybe even about their biology. At this point, any information was bound to be useful. Tony couldn’t always be relied on for random facts.

“Hey! What’s that bird doing up there?” A voice shouted.

America suddenly froze.

Down below him, a person stood pointing up with an accusatory look. A Controller, most likely, and one with keen eyes. Drat. He had been spotted.

America snapped out of his paralyzed state and quickly shuffled as fast as he could back into the ventilation shaft. Quick, quick, he needed to get out of there! He needed to morph into something small, preferably a fly, and then hide. They had spotted him!

He could still hear faint yelling from below. He only caught a few of the words, but what he heard sent him into a panic.

“...earth bird of prey… should not be found underground… likely threat…”

“I see… send them.”

_Send them? Send who? Send what?_

<America, is everything okay?> Canada’s voice interrupted his panicking.

<No everything's not okay they just found me oh my goodness they saw me I gotta hide I gotta hide I gotta hide-> America shrieked and continued on his way, shuffling down the ventilation pipe.

<Whoa whoa whoa. Calm down. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just… just stay calm, okay? I’ll get to you and make sure they don’t try anything funny.>

Although Canada sounded pretty confident, America wasn’t too assured just yet. Especially since he saw a dark shadow looming in from the other end of the shaft, accompanied by horrendous shrieking noises. Oh no. They knew where he was! He had to hide, he had to hide!

And oh shit there was another one of the things coming towards him from his other side as well. He was trapped.

Frozen in fear, America could only watch in horror as the two creatures emerged from behind the bends of the ventilation shaft, and when they did, he really, really regretted morphing an animal with such good eyesight, because the very appearance of the alien was horrendous enough to be permanently laser-burned into the back of his eyeballs forever.

The thing was most definitely a centipede, but it was gigantic. In fact, America wasn’t really sure how it was able to even fit through the ventilation pipes, since it looked like it would have been squeezed to death and popped before it even got in all the way. Its body was covered in what appeared to be chitin, of a rustish color. It had a pair of legs on every single one of its body segments. The front third of its body had little claw pincers instead of legs. But what was most terrifying was its face. It had four giant, pupil less red Jello eyes on stalks that (no kidding) most definitely embodied the very spirit of hell itself. And its mouth was a terrifying lamprey hole of rings and rings of teeth that would most definitely shred America to pieces before he had time to react.

It was a Taxxon, and every bit as horrible as Tony had warned him.

And now both of the aliens had cornered him.

_Oh shit._

He knew that he couldn’t give himself away, though. There was no telling what the creepy monsters would do to him if they knew what he really was. Better to let them assume he was just a random bird that had somehow made it into the pool complex, or whatever else they thought he was.

“Do not consume the bird.”

A stern voice resonated through the pipe.

The Taxxon worms halted, mere feet from reaching America (the very thought made him shudder in repulsion and horror).

And then, in the blink of an eye, they had captured him in their claws!

America struggled and fussed and tried very, very hard to bite the claws so that he could get away to no avail. Within moments, he had been brought out of the shafts. The Taxxons then climbed sideways down the sloping concrete wall onto the floor of the pool complex. There, waiting for the trio, was a group of no less than ten or so of the green Hork-Bajir. At the center of the squad of intimidating dinosaur aliens was a single human. A single, very angry-looking human. A Controller.

“I know what you’re thinking, Andalite filth, and let me just tell you that it won’t work,” the man began before America had even gotten within ten feet of him. “Your tactics won’t work because you are outnumbered and outgunned. You have no resources here. If you are fighting alone, you may as well give up. The rest of your allies won’t be here for at least several of your earth years.”

America stayed silent.

He had absolutely no idea what this guy was talking about. Andalite? Why would the Controller mistake a random bald eagle for a blue centaur alien? And furthermore, what did he mean when he mentioned the rest of his allies not coming here?

“Trying to play dumb as usual, I see,” the man sneered.

America bit back the urge to unleash all of his frustration and anger on the man. He had to stay hidden. If he didn’t say anything, the Controller wouldn’t know anything. No valuable information would be lost.

<You okay there?> Canada yelled from the distance.

<I’m being interrogated over here. Also, I can’t get away. Stay hidden. I’ll break out somehow,> America responded.

He thanked his lucky stars that thought speak could only be heard by those he wanted to.

“Bring it into the room. Don’t let it escape, or you’ll all be starved personally by yours truly,” the man boomed.

Immediately, America was hauled towards one of the office buildings. It didn’t look any different from the other ones. The only thing strange about it was the fact that nobody, no free roaming Controllers about to enter the pool, or anyone else for that matter, got anywhere near it. America mentally gulped.

The other people in the area just simply got out of the way of the troop of Hork-Bajir. America was pushed into the room roughly, and then dangled from a Hork-Bajir’s claw.

“Tell me, Andalite. How did you get here all by yourself?”

America looked away from the man’s face. He knew that behind those ordinary features was a terrifying slug controlling the poor man’s brain. America secretly vowed to free this man if possible, to get the disgusting parasite out of his brain.

“Answer the question.”

Before he knew it, America was being slapped across the head. He recovered from his dazed swinging to see the Controller glaring at him.

“Refuse to answer, and the real torture will begin,” the man growled.

America hadn’t gone through any particularly painful situations compared to some of the other nations, even in his almost four hundred years of existence. Sure, he had come close to torture, but he was sure that whatever these aliens with what was surely high tech equipment could do a lot more damage than the most evil humans on the planet.

He was not ready.

Apparently the evil Controller had mistaken his moment of hesitation as proof of his silence.

“Very well.”

A trail of ice ran down America’s spine.

“Take him into the special devices room.”

The Hork-Bajir tightened his grip on America’s bird limbs, and he nearly cried out in pain. They began to move into a dark hallway.

<Canada! Now would be a really, really good time to interfere and help!> America screeched.

<I’m trying! But there are so many green dino aliens around! I’m afraid that before I’ve even finished morphing into my battle morph, they’ll catch me and then realize that we’ve been working together, and our secret would be out. I’ll try to get to you, but still!> Canada responded.

It looked like he would have to hold out as long as possible.

America was slammed into a cage. The door was shut before he could even react. He stood up quickly, looking around frantically for a weakness or hole of any kind. But it was no use. The cage’s bars were thicker and closer together than normal, and a blackish color. The floor of the cage looked like a plastic gray platform. That was when America turned to the side of the cage and realized that at the edge of the platform, where he couldn’t reach, was a keyboard of various buttons.

The creepy Controller from before stepped close and pushed his Hork-Bajir bodyguards out of the way. His finger hovered dangerously close to a red button.

“Before I unleash the worst kind of fury on your feeble animal mind, let me remind you of one thing you won’t soon forget. You’re looking at Visser Two here, the one and only great and powerful Visser Two. Keep that in mind. All my life I’ve been watching and waiting for one of you to practically show up at my doorstep, weakened by your stupid courage and defenseless to the superiority of the Yeerk empire. And lo and behold, here you are. Looks like you weren’t planning on this happening, were you?”

 _Sheesh, is this guy monologuing?_ America wondered.

“Either way, now that you’re here, I’ll simply have to make amends to get some information out of you. It’s simply, really. And if you can’t deal with giving up your oh-so-precious information, I’ll only ask that you demorph and surrender yourself.”

_The hell? Like I’m gonna actually demorph. This guy sounds more immature than me._

“You should be glad it’s me doing the interrogation and not Visser Three. Despite the fact that he’s ranked lower than I am, we’ve been working closely in the past few years, and I know he would have loved to get his blue Andalite host hands on your filthy bird body.”

America’s mind immediately picked up a few shreds of information from the monologue. This insane guy’s name was Visser Two, and “visser” had to be a title of some sort. Like a commander or something. He was close with a buddy of his by the name of Visser Three. And apparently Visser Three had an Andalite for a host. It sounded like Visser Two was jealous.

“But once I’m through with you, I’ll report my actions to him and leave the rest up to him if you don’t break today. There’s always tomorrow.”

The man sneered before balling his hand into a fist and raising it above the button, prepared to slam down. America braced for whatever torture was to come.

But before it could come, he heard muffled crashing from somewhere off in the distance. And then another crash. And then screaming. And then a roar.

Visser Two jerked away from the cage, his eyes narrowing.

Almost immediately after, another Hork-Bajir burst through the closed door, panting and looking fear-stricken.

“Visser, sir, the Andalite bandits are here. They’re attacking the entrance,” he managed while gasping.

The man closed his eyes and exhaled, as if preparing to deal with whatever the heck had just happened.

“I never thought I’d see the day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you need a reminder as to what Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Yeerks and whatever look like, go back to [the end notes of Chapter Four.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8040172/chapters/18977437)
> 
> The next chapter brings us real action. Not the petty lazy action you've been delivered so far by yours truly. There will be fighting. There will be bloodshed. There will be all the countries looking badass af.
> 
> I'm gonna draw some fanart for myself for this fic. Every fic is 10x better with fanart. By the way, this fic is almost over. There will be maybe 3 or so chapters left, and then it's the end of the prologue! But it won't be the end of the series, oh no. 
> 
> As I've said in the notes in the first chapter, this series is set up like a bunch of separate books in a single series. There will be long multichapter fics as separate books, coupled with short oneshots, that make up a greater canon continuum. The reason I chose to devote so much energy to this fic (that doesn't get any readers smh) is because I really believe in the potential of this crossover. I just hope that maybe more people can read this (I'm a desperate and starving writer who chose to update this fic over doing her midterm studying lmao).
> 
> Again, the next update for this fic probably won't happen until maybe three weeks later as I am VERY BUSY. Also btw I LIVE for reviews and comments. So. You know.


	10. The Shot that Started the War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nations get their first taste of battle with the Yeerks, and only barely manage to survive. Sadly they do not yet know of the full power of the Yeerk empire.

Not too long after the Visser had snarled at the Hork-Bajir about his future, there came a terrifyingly loud crash. And then, all of a sudden, the stone wall of the interrogation room was bashed inwards, followed by a loud roar.

Stone brick and mortar and sheetrock went flying everywhere. Before the dust had even settled, a bear -- a polar bear -- had run through the hole in the wall, roaring and standing up on its hind legs.

<I’m here to rescue you!> Canada yelled, his voice sounding quite cheerful despite the circumstances.

America cowered in his bird cage.

<Get me out, will you?>

<Of course,> Canada replied, before dropping low to avoid the slash of a Hork-Bajir, <but maybe hang on a second while I wreck this guy.>

Canada the bear and the Hork-Bajir engaged themselves in combat, with America watching in awe and wonder. He had always wondered how the Hork-Bajir fought, and now he was getting his answer. The green dino alien utilized the blades sprouting from all over its body to its full power, slashing with its arms and tail and even head. Canada was just as formidable of an opponent, with amazing strength and an even stronger bite.

A distracted part of America’s mind helpfully supplied him the knowledge that the polar bear had one of the strongest bites of any animal.

A thin line of red appeared on Canada’s flank. He had been hit.

The bear howled in pain, then sunk his teeth into the Hork-Bajir’s arm before bowling it over to the ground and pinning him down. The alien struggled and shrieked and attempted to cleanly remove Canada’s hind leg with its tail, before Canada raised his paw and took out the Hork-Bajir with a single blow.

It was then that America noticed that the crazy Visser dude was still there, just standing and staring and not even doing anything. How the heck had the guy managed to get himself to such a high position if he couldn’t even perform simple tasks like react when being attacked?

“You Andalite scum.”

That must have been his all-time favorite catchphrase or something, but it was beginning to get a little boring.

<I’ll take him out,> Canada offered.

But before Canada could get any closer, the man had bolted out of the room, leaving the door creaking and hanging open.

<Oh my god,> America groaned.

Canada turned to look at the open door, and then decided that it wasn’t worth it to chase after the guy. In fact, he was most likely looking for backup. Canada definitely should break America out before the guy showed up with Hork-Bajir backup, because he definitely couldn’t fight them off himself.

<Alright. Don’t move. I’m gonna bash that cage in like my least favorite hockey player’s skull,> Canada said, and grasped the cage between his massive paws.

<I didn’t know you were that violent.>

<I am when it comes to hockey. And rescuing my brother.>

<Aww, that’s so swee- AHHH!!!>

America was screaming because Canada had slammed the cage against the ground, and kept doing so, several more times, jostling the poor bird inside. When the cage bars didn’t budge, Canada bit down on one of the bars, and only after tremendous effort did he even bend it before it gave way.

America was completely dazed when he was finally lifted out of the cage.

<Sorry,> Canada offered.

<I think I have whiplash,> America groaned.

Several painfully long pauses later, Canada placed America on the ground, then stood by him protectively while he demorphed and waited to remorph into his battle form.

As America had told England earlier, his battle form was that of the bison. Since earlier in the year, America had realized that he had a particular affinity for the animal. England had told him at one point, when he was but a young child, he had picked up one of the creatures and swung it around. England had remarked that it was ridiculous, considering America was a mere toddler and hadn’t been frightened. But America guessed it showed some sort of connection had formed between him and the creature. It was strong, majestic, and peaceful at heart. But oh boy, could it cause quite a lot of destruction when it was angered. America himself unfortunately also had experience with this (an incident had occurred that involved him trying to take a selfie with one of the animals at Yellowstone, and ended up with him having to use crutches for a week. He didn’t like to talk about it).

As America closed his eyes, he imagined what it must feel like being a bison. He imagined the power that it had, which it kept under control until it was angered. A peaceful creature, but a strong one nevertheless. A little like himself, England had commented.

His skin sprouted curly brown fur until he looked like Bigfoot. And then he began to gain weight very, very quickly. Soon he was a lumbering humanoid shape with hands and feet. His fingernails and toenails began to harden and darken before they merged together and thickened into proper hooves. He felt muscle piling onto his back and his legs. His head expanded like a block, elongated into that distinctive bison shape, and sprouted two tiny curled horns that could most definitely gouge out an evil alien’s insides if he tried hard enough. His vision dimmed and his sense of smell heightened -- now he could definitely tell some serious fighting was going on outside. Lastly, his spine lengthened into a little rope-like tail with a tuft at the end.

Canada had moved out of the way when America finished morphing, and the two only needed to share brief eye contact to instantly understand each other.

They both charged out of the building through the broken wall.

Only to emerge into the middle of a battlefield.

There were Controllers and Hork-Bajir everywhere. People were screaming as they got run over by animals. Hork-Bajir Controllers were utilizing their wrist blades to their best ability, only to get bowled over to the side with the mighty sweep of a paw. Some sort of Yeerk ray-gun had also been distributed to all the Controllers, who were now madly firing them at everything that moved.

It was like something straight out of Star Trek, or a 90s sci-fi movie, or maybe some kind of crazy circus. Wherever the beams hit, the object there would instantly be evaporated. The ray-guns even made TSEEEW TSEEEEWWW noises as they were fired.

And there, amongst all the fray, was the first animal to capture and really hold onto America’s attention. A single lion, all golden fur and powerful limbs, roaring as it batted a Hork-Bajir straight into the Yeerk pool with a humongous splash.

The lion stopped and looked over, just barely making eye contact with America for a moment.

<England?> America asked.

<About time you joined in on the party. We thought you’d gone missing,> England retorted, then jumped out of the way just barely before being hit by one of the laser beams.

<Well, don’t just stand there!> England yelled, <Start destroying the place.>

America did as told.

He turned around to see a posse of Hork-Bajir running towards him, unarmed with ray-guns, and completely defenseless.

He smirked to himself.

In an instant, he was barreling towards the alien Controllers, and in a little more than an instant, he had bowled into them and knocked them clean into the floor with his momentum. Victorious, America took the time to run over them to make sure that they were out.

Suddenly, there was a searing pain in his side.

<AHHHHH!!!> He cried, only then noticing the burnt black wound in his side, caused by one of those darn ray-guns, no doubt.

The bison mind’s instincts overwhelmed his own.  _ WHO DID IT?? WHAT KIND OF AWFUL, AWFUL CREATURE WOULD DARE TO HURT SUCH A PEACEFUL BISON??? SHOW YOURSELF. YOU WILL BE DESTROYED. IT WILL HURT. _

His vision was red with rage. Something moved about twenty feet away. A Controller, probably.

He charged toward the Controller and hit her head on. Using his horns as leverage, he swung the Controller around and sent her flying into the nearest building.

Out of nowhere, a wolf ran in front of him.

<America, is that you?> The wolf paused and looked at him quickly, before dashing away to chase some Controllers away from the cages where the humans were kept.

<Italy?>

<Yeah, it’s me! This is so scary!>

Across the pool, America could spot several other animals. There was a brown bear, calmly using its paws to knock Controllers and Hork-Bajir into the ground. Accompanying the bear was another wolf, and the two worked together to first knock the ray-gun out of a man’s hand before taking him out as well.

Farther to the right, a snow leopard and tiger were fighting together, leaping with the agility of true cats and using their teeth and claws to their full advantage to completely annihilate any Hork-Bajir that came in their way.

A strong sense of pride filled America then, seeing his fellow nations take on such powerful forms to wreak havoc on the evil base of a very evil alien species planning on taking over the world. They were almost superheroes.

Standing by the pool was an ibex that hesitated for a few short moments before leaping into the pool with the Yeerks. America shuddered at the thought of being near so many mind-controlling alien slugs, but the ibex was fine. It used its horns to skewer many of the Yeerks, flinging them aside when they were killed.

America then remembered something. There were still free people and Hork-Bajir in the cages lined up against the cavern walls. 

He turned tail and ran over to the nearest cage, and looked around frantically for some kind of lock he could disable. The people inside regarded him wearily -- they probably didn’t know who he was and what he was doing there. America was disappointed to find out that the lock could only be deactivated when a passcode was entered onto the wall. So, instead of code-breaking or hacking like he normally would, he resorted to a much more low-tech method that was bound to work either way.

He backed up, then rammed into the cage. Several people inside screamed.

All he succeeded in doing was giving himself what was probably a mild concussion. And yet the cage bars hadn’t budged in the smallest bit.

America stared at the cage bars in despair. He couldn’t just give up on these people who had a chance at being free again!

He backed up, ready for another go, when a thought-speak voice interrupted his attempt.

<Is that you, America? It’s Prussia. I’m here in my mighty rhino form to assist you.>

Lumbering out of nowhere was, indeed, a giant, thick-skinned, gray rhino, all huge nose horn and heavyset body and everything.

<Just tell me where to aim, okay? I can’t actually see very well,> Prussia said.

<Great!> America cheered, then added, <And you’re facing the right way. On the count of three, let’s bash this cage open together. Ready? One… two… three!>

America sprinted forward at max speed along with Prussia, and the two collided into the cage with such force that the doors cracked and fell inwards, somehow fortunately not hurting a single soul inside.

<Get out, run, run! Get out of the pool complex, and hide yourselves!> America yelled, directing his thought-speak to the now freed humans.

They obeyed. Whether it was because they trusted him or because they didn’t want to be there a moment longer was not clear.

Soon people were sprinting in all directions, screaming and trying to get out of the way of ray-gun fire. America shrieked in horror when he saw several get hit and disappear -- vaporized -- on the spot.

<Guys! Whatever you do, protect the people that are escaping! They’re free! Cover them from fire and make sure they make it out safely!> America yelled.

Animals all across the pool complex paused in their actions, and changed direction to fight the armed Controllers near the crowd of escaping people. Amongst the crowd of humans were several Hork-Bajir, also presumably free, all running towards various stairwell exits. America was delighted and relieved to see that dozens of people were making it out already, hopefully into the city, where they could disappear and never again fall prey to the evil Yeerks.

And then, an evil screeching voice rang loudly through the cavern.

“Did you think you would be able to win so easily?”

America turned to find none other than Visser Two, standing on the other side of the pool, backed up by no less than fifty Hork-Bajir and human Controllers, all armed with ray-guns.

<Well shit.>

America quickly glanced over at his fellow Nationmorphs, who had all frozen in the middle of their various tasks to look at whoever was talking. They all seemed kind of unimpressed, and America couldn’t blame them. This had to be, like, the most lame villain he had ever encountered, ever.

“Fire!” The Visser shrieked.

The cavern was suddenly filled with twice as much ray-gun beam fire. To America’s ever growing horror, several people were hit, others injured, and all screamed.

The other nations snapped out of their frozen state, and continued their attack. America saw his chance. The Visser was too busy shrieking and laughing that oh-so-cliche evil villain laugh, all loud and deep and whatever. But America was just mad. How dare this guy hurt so many of his people, and have the nerve to act all high and mighty at the same time? But the guy was so distracted in reveling in his self-glory that he probably assumed that his shock troops would be able to cover for him.

Not if America could help it.

He charged forward, the bison mind in him screaming in anger. He didn’t even see where he was going. It was like he had tunnel vision. He simply ran like there was nothing else in the world, only that blathering evil alien overlord in front of him, defenseless and totally at risk of being gored. 

He was closing in!

Twenty feet!

Ten!

Suddenly something shot out in front of him, and then all he could feel was pain.

His legs collapsed and he fell over, skidding the last few feet towards the Visser, who had only then just noticed him.

Just then, America saw the source of his suffering.

A Hork-Bajir hovered over him, face contorted in an especially smug smirk. The alien Controller’s wrist blade was held out in front of him, dripping with a dark red liquid.

Blood.

America’s blood.

He had been slashed by the Hork-Bajir and he had been too busy thinking about goring the Visser to even notice.

The Visser cackled, loud and about as evilly as any standard movie villain would laugh.

“Did you think you would actually succeed in hurting me? Pathetic.”

America raged inside. The fool was mocking him! _ How dare he? _ America noticed the pain again, a very sharp, very deep pain in his side, where there most likely lay a gash a foot deep. At least several organs had been punctured, and if he didn’t demorph soon, he would die. And America didn’t know if he would still be able to respawn like the standard personification could, considering the influence of Tony’s morphing technology.

But if he demorphed, the Visser and every other Yeerk would know who he was. And the identity of the nations would no longer be a secret. Their entire mission, their purpose as a group of recently united fighters would be destroyed.

His pain-addled mind could do little more than lie there, as the sounds of faint ray-gun fire and snarling and fighting and slashing grew muffled. He was dying, wasn’t he?

Was that it? Had his entire existence as a nation been leading up to this one pathetic moment the whole time?

The Visser was right. This _ was _ kind of pathetic.

Perhaps if he could sneak past the Hork-Bajir and the Visser though… he could demorph.

His thoughts were fading. He was losing a lot of blood, all of it pooling around him in a crimson puddle.

Suddenly, there was a shriek.

A shadow flew over America’s limp bison form and crashed into the presence nearby, the Visser.

With some of his remaining energy, America just barely managed to lift his head to look at whatever it was that had happened, only to see a lion (England, his groggy brain reminded him) had knocked the Visser clean off his feet and sent him skidding into the ground almost twenty feet away.

<Demorph, America!> England screamed, and turned to give him a look, before a Hork-Bajir approached him and they engaged in fierce combat, blades and claws slashing and biting.

<Wha…?> America managed.

<Dammit, why can’t you keep your arse out of trouble?!> England yelled again, and slammed his paw into the Hork-Bajir’s head.

A flash of gray barreled into the Hork-Bajir that England was clinging onto into the ground. The triumphant ibex thrashed its horns around and gored the Hork-Bajir cleanly through the side.

<Go drag his sorry ass out of trouble,> the ibex, now revealed to be France, said.

England only hesitated for a moment before running over to the spot America was still lying in.

<What am I ever going to do with you,> England muttered, pacing around America for a few seconds before seemingly coming to a decision. <This is going to hurt.>

Before America could see what England was trying to do, he felt a sharp pain in the thick skin at the base of his neck, right around his back, where the bison equivalent of shoulders would be. America found himself being dragged away from the fray.

<Why are you so heavy?> England wondered as he yanked back, successfully moving the bison a total of maybe two feet.

<Because I’m, like, 70% muscle right now,> America answered.

<More like 70% fat and 30% thickheadedness. I can’t believe you’re dying and the only thing you can think about is making snobby comments.>

Their banter continued like that for a while, all while England kept on dragging America, leaving behind a sickly looking trail of blood smeared across the cement floor. Raygun fire continued on over their heads, and miraculously, they were not hit even once. It was unreal. It was almost as if the Yeerks were intentionally avoiding them or something…

Before America had time to figure out what his fleeting thought meant, England yanked him back one last time, and America found himself behind the shield of a mound of wooden crates.

<Alright,> the lion muttered, <Demorph.>

America thought about it. He thought about it really hard. Nothing happened.

<Okay, so  _ now _ you choose to disobey me.> England snarled.

<I’m trying! It doesn’t work for some reason,> America yelled, surprise at the panic rising in his own voice. Suddenly another thought occurred to him. <Wait, what if you can’t demorph if you’re too far injured?>

America could see England’s blood running cold. The lion froze, eyes widening, before looking down at the injured bison.

<That can’t be true,> England said. <It can’t be.>

<What if it is?> America persisted.

<It is  _ not _ .>

America found himself unable to reply to that barely whispered last response. It looked like England was about to cry.

<You are going to demorph and it is going to happen successfully, and you will not die a pathetically injured bison in some god forsaken underground pit,> England yelled.

America mentally winced.

Perhaps there was another way to do so. He closed his eyes and attempted to ignore the feeling of blood pooling at his side, in favor of lighter images, images of a human-personification version of him, eating food, swimming, sleeping, watching a movie, sharing a table with England…

And yet, as always, his thoughts inevitably turned to the grumpy nation standing no more than three feet away from him.

It was rather silly, come to think of it, that America was lying there, dying, and all he could think about was England.

He pictured the other nation basking in the golden glow of the sunlight, eyes closed, features relaxed, the barest hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips. It had been a moment a mere year ago; how did America remember such a random snapshot?

The thoughts continued flooding in, like some sort of gate beyond the deepest reaches of his mind had been opened, and all the memories contained behind it were now exploding outward.

Again and again, England popped up.

Sitting at a table, yelling at France.

Bent over a pile of fallen books, filtering through them, groaning when he realized he had no idea how to organize them.

Yelling at America for eating his food.

Before America knew it, he heard that familiar sound of bones shifting and cracking, muscles shrinking, skin sliding around awkwardly as fur disappeared and organs rearranged themselves. The cut on the side of his flank, which he could see if he just turned his head around, disappeared, swallowed into his skin which was quickly becoming its usual tan color. 

America lay completely uninjured and also very unfortunately naked before England, who turned away in a halfhearted attempt to give the other some privacy.

Again, America closed his eyes, and concentrated on becoming the bison. Now refreshed, the changes happened faster, and before he knew it he was fully morphed and angrier than ever.

<Let’s wreck some Yeerk infrastructure,> America yelled.

Without even bothering to wait for England, he exploded out from behind the crates and headed towards the closest thing that could be destroyed: another warehouse.

_ It must have at one point held food for the food court, _ America thought only briefly before he ran straight into the garage door and dented it. He backed up, dizzy, before doing so again, and this time, he rammed straight through.

Outside, his friends were still fighting the Visser and his gang of bodyguards, or whatever the heck those elite-looking Hork-Bajir Controllers were meant to be.

In the meantime, America supposed he had time to spare to wreck the complex.

Fate must have been with him, because the first things his eyes happened upon were a bundle of barrels marked with the ‘flammable’ symbol. _ It must be gasoline _ , he thought.

What better way to torch the place than to literally torch the place?

America lowered his head and nudged one of the barrels towards the ripped open garage door, then kicked it. The barrel rolled into the middle of the pool floor. Hopefully a stray raygun beam would hit it and make it blow up. He rolled the rest of the barrels out, too, then ran outside.

Only to run straight into the heat of the battle. The fighting had moved around to right in front of the warehouse he had been in.

Right away, a tiger jumped in front of him, their limbs barely brushing, before tackling a human Controller and sending the raygun skidding out of her hands. With another swift blow, she was out.

Several Hork-Bajir and human Controllers were lying unconscious or injured on the floor. America felt kind of sick at seeing all the blood. The Controllers were merely puppets of the Yeerks, and for them to be hurt when they weren’t even in control of their actions…

A Hork-Bajir that came running at him was taken out with a mere swing of the head. America threw the alien away, where it stayed on the floor, somewhere between unconscious and injured.

<We can’t go on for much longer,> Germany warned, <Strategically speaking, sooner or later the real reinforcements will come in. I’m certain this Yeerk species has them.>

America realized with a jolt that he was right. They had to either win the battle quickly and decisively or pull out before it was too late. The first batch of reinforcements and shock troops was enough for them already; he couldn’t imagine having to fight even more.

<Where is the Visser? I’m going to kidnap him and bring him back for interrogation,> America asked, looking around frantically while dodging ray gun beams.

A gray wolf paused in ripping the raygun out of a man’s hand to look at America.

<I believe he has run off again, probably to retrieve those reinforcements we are speaking of,> Japan answered.

<Drat. We’ve gotta start moving out, guys! Take out whatever Controllers you encounter, and make sure all the free humans made it out! Also, I left a few barrels of gasoline on the floor near the pool ledge. Can someone light them up for me? The pool needs to be destroyed!> America yelled.

The fray only intensified, as more raygun beams shot past America’s face (one of them coming dangerously close to searing his left eye). The air was filled with the roars of animals and the inhuman shrieks of Controller shock troops.

Out of the corner of his eye, America saw a human Controller running up to him.

America whipped around and knocked the man flat onto his back, then towered over him, nostrils flaring and hooves ready to stomp on the man at any time.

“Don’t think you can overpower me!” the man shrieked.

Suddenly, the voice registered. It was the same man America had heard talking to the other mysterious man back up in the secret room with Canada, the one Canada had later followed in fly form. Here he was, right in America’s grasp.

<Sorry. You’re coming with me,> America said, then knocked the man out.

Seconds later, after hauling the unconscious form over his back, he turned around and saw what he had been fearing all along: the opening of a huge door in the side of the cavern, and behind it, what could only be those reinforcements.

It seems Germany noticed them too.

<Retreat!>

<Fall back, everyone, fall back!>

All of the animals turned tail and ran, some of them limping, others bounding faster than most cars on their way to the only escape, the nearest stairwell.

Then, more booming laughter.

“Now you impossible little bandits are going to see the real show,” the Visser cackled again, from somewhere off in the distance.

America didn’t even bother trying to figure out where the guy was. He simply kept running, flanking two other animals.

One by one, his friends began their fast-paced trek up the stairwell. Prussia, the rhino, had something hanging from his mouth. It was a raygun. America barely had time to pass him before Prussia somehow managed to fire it, and a beam of bright red light shot past him and hit one of the barrels. Before he knew it, the entire cavern was alight with flames.

<Let’s go!> Prussia shrieked, retreating up the stairwell.

America followed closely behind him, fire licking at his hooves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are the battle morphs of all the nations for reference (I know y'all know what these animals are. Or at least I hope you do. This is just for reference. Just in case.):  
> -America is a (North American) bison. The bison recently became America's national animal along with the bald eagle in around 2015, I think. Bison have historically roamed the great plains and were pretty integral to European exploroconquerors' first impressions of the landscape.  
>   
> -England is a lion, which is his other national symbol besides the unicorn on his royal coat of arms.  
>   
> -France's morph is the ibex. When he acquired it he had exclaimed that he wanted his battle morph to be elegant as well as lethal. This will make him very, very vulnerable to attacks in future battles. Let's get real here. Ibexes aren't exactly the best choice for a morph that will go running through walls or dodging raygun fire.  
>   
> -Canada's is the polar bear. The symbolism here is pretty obvious, as he loved Kumajiro so much he just had to acquire him.  
>   
> -Japan is a ezo wolf. The ezo wolf is actually extinct in Japan, but for the sake of this fic let's just pretend he somehow managed to acquire some DNA anyway. For reference, here is a picture of a generic wolf.  
>   
> -China's morph is a south china tiger. It lives kind of around his southern half, as mentioned by the name.  
>   
> -Germany's is the brown bear. Bears are a symbol of bravery and courage in a lot of cultures. If you read the chapter carefully, you would have noticed that I mentioned a bear and wolf fighting together. Hint hint.  
>   
> -Italy is also a wolf. He's whatever species of wolf that lives in Europe. Actually, I'm pretty sure all european wolves were introduced to the region and prior to that had been extinct. Here's another generic wolf. You're welcome.  
>   
> -Russia's is a snow leopard. These live around mountains and, very obviously, snow. Basically any morph I choose for Russia's primary symbolic reference will be to the cold.  
>   
> -Prussia's is the rhino. I haven't decided what species of rhino yet. Just know that it has very terrible eyesight, thick skin, and can easily break through the walls of buildings. Exactly as destructive as he wanted to be.  
> 
> 
> It's been a long three weeks. I still have tests to study for. I hate a lot of things, not including this fic. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, considering the amount of action it contained. I will add some fanart of the nations morphing very, very soon! Stay tuned! I will always post updates on my tumblr if you need them.


	11. Escapade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nations escape the Yeerk pool, only to realize that their exit leads directly to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, right in the middle of the National Mall of Washington D.C. Needless to say, they have to avoid the police and other authorities. The newspapers are going to have a field day.

The sound of blaring alarms was the very first thing that America registered as soon as he exited the staircase.

The screaming of security guards and… was that the police?... was the second thing.

America stood in the middle of the polished marble floor of the Smithsonian museum of natural history, looking around both in excitement and confusion as animals and poor confused civilians ran amok.

Several display cases had been knocked over, and shattered glass littered the floor. No one seemed to be hurt. No one really seemed to know what was going on either.

<America! Earth to Alfred!> A voice snapped the stunned bison out of his reverie.

<Oh, oh yeah! Where is everyone?>

Despite the fact that England was a lion, America swore he saw the other nation roll his feline eyes.

<Outside.> he snarled, <Now come on and let’s abscond before your SWAT team comes in.>

Without further words, America was galloping across the slick floor (he nearly slipped once) after England, and the two of them weaved through glass display cases and frightened tourists until they found the main entrance of the museum.

It was just as grand and imposing as America remembered. It had only been about a year since he had last visited this museum, so it wasn’t too unfamiliar to him. He snapped out of his second reverie just in time to see a presumably free Hork-Bajir sprint down the small stone steps and nearly get run over by a truck. The confused truck driver swerved so sharply America was surprised to see him just barely miss clipping a parked car. The green alien disappeared around a corner, hopefully to survive (though America had a bad feeling about the state of its freedom).

Only then were the nations able to register the flashing red and blue lights glowing in the darkness of night. Police cars had lined themselves up and down the street, and were simply standing, shocked, as waves after waves of confused people and angry people (with rayguns) flooded out of the museum, followed with green dinosaur aliens.

“What are those?” America heard one of the officers shout into a walkie-talkie.

<Move, you idiot!> England cried as he harshly slung the unconscious man back onto a better position on America’s flank (he had been sliding off earlier).

For probably the hundredth time that night, America again snapped out of his reverie, turned around, saw the disappearing behinds of his friends, and ran frantically after them in a lame attempt to catch up.

That was when the police finally noticed the animals.

“Holy shit, there must have been another zoo breakout!”

“Somebody call Animal Control!”

“What the-- Is that a dinosaur?” (This one must have been referring to a Hork-Bajir.)

America ran and ran, his breathing heavy and his limbs steadily growing more and more tired. He wasn’t sure he could run for much longer, especially with the weight of the captured Controller guy on his back. Sooner or later he would collapse from exhaustion. He was surprised that none of the officers around him had begun shooting. Then again, America was pretty sure that the police had a policy where they weren’t allowed to shoot at endangered animals if they weren’t actively posing a threat to anyone.

Or at least America hoped that he and his friends weren’t actively posing a threat to anyone. He didn’t see any innocent civilians running around being harmed, but you never really knew with the police.

Besides him, England was also running, leaping over dropped rayguns and the edges of the stone sidewalk. He was also panting, seemingly even more out of breath than America was. America recalled learning about animal endurance sometime in the past, and remembered that predators usually had higher top speeds than prey animals, but also less endurance, which meant that England was probably actually about to collapse at any moment.

<Are you okay?> America tried asking, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he ran.

<Getting kind of fatigued,> was England’s breathless response.

There was nowhere for them to go. They were running in the middle of the National Mall, and nowhere within a mile radius was there any forest to hide in. In fact, they were presently running and leaping across roads in the center of Washington D.C.

<This was a horrible, horrible idea!> America cried when he nearly got hit by a car.

Ahead of him, the rest of the gang had momentarily paused at the edge of the green.

<Where do we go now?> Germany asked, looking around frantically.

<I don’t know,> America said, <All around us are buildings. There isn’t any tree cover extensive enough for us to demorph.>

<So we’re trapped?> England finished.

<Yes, it seems that we are,> China agreed.

<Well shit.>

<We can’t just stand here. The Controller side of the police force will be arriving soon, and there is literally no way we can survive if we don’t get away.> France reasoned.

<Will we be okay?> Italy wondered.

<Wait a minute, where’s Russia? He was with us just a minute ago.>

Everyone fell silent. And it was true. No snow leopard stood with the rest of the group. It was like he had vanished into thin air. _God darn that communist jerk, abandoning us now at the best of times,_ America thought.

<You know this place the best,> Prussia interjected, nudging America’s flank with his nose. <Think of something. Tell us where to go.>

America obediently closed his eyes and thought. He thought very, very hard. They couldn’t demorph in the middle of the open; that would surely cause their doom and get them captured by the Yeerks, which probably made up a large fraction of the general public. The faint sounds of screeching tires of police cars and the shouting of animal control employees reached America’s ears, and he shut them out.

They were at the edge of the green in the middle of the National Mall. In front of him were more roads and buildings. Behind him was the Smithsonian he had just come running out of. There was no tree cover to demorph in, and how the heck was he supposed to carry this unconscious guy while flying?

Suddenly, a thought struck him.

If the group ran about two miles to the right, they would pass the Washington Monument and hit the Potomac. At this point, it was either water cover or nothing.

<We’re gonna have to do some bridge jumping. We’re going to demorph in the Potomac river,> America announced.

There was silence for exactly two seconds before a huge and heavy truck came screeching right at them, a wild-looking man hanging out of the right window with what looked suspiciously like a tranquilizer gun.

<Move, move, move!> England cried.

America took off, sprinting as fast as he could in the direction of the monument. A brief glance behind him told him that his friends were still there, also sprinting. They quickly caught up to him, and the entire group ran with screaming police and crazy tranquilizer people hot on their trail.

The stone obelisk loomed in front of them, looking much more imposing than it usually did (well actually, it usually looked inspirational, at least for America).

<I do not want to die at the hands of my own police force. That would be pretty embarrassing,> America conceded as he barreled past a road.

<We’re about to die and you have the nerve to complain about your pride?> England shrieked.

America internally winced. England was definitely not in a good mood. Though to be honest, he wasn’t really in a good mood either.

And there! They just passed the monument. Only a little less than two miles to go… if they didn’t pass out from exhaustion before they made it, that is.

<I’m afraid I don’t have much more energy left,> Japan panted, followed by Italy agreeing.

<We can’t stop. We’ll probably die if we do. The police think we’re escaped zoo animals,> Germany reminded them.

America glanced up. A single tree zipped past him as he ran. The reflecting pool was quickly approaching them. About a mile now. Anytime now. The police behind them were going crazy, trying to drive all their cars on the same narrow road, honking their way past confused civilians and even more confused escaped Yeerk-pool prisoners. The cars and animal control were less than one hundred feet away. Within a few minutes, they could very well be within shooting distance. Then the Nationmorphs would start dropping like flies. For all the power of all the animals in the world, they sure were susceptible to tranquilizer darts.

Just a little farther, and they would reach Lincoln’s memorial. The familiar marble steps leading up the the giant figure of America’s 16th president would usually be enough to comfort him and assure him everything would be alright, but he merely ran away from them now, for he couldn’t risk getting himself and his friends trapped next to the building. The group veered left around the memorial and kept running. Now the heavy breathing of everyone was apparent, and nobody looked like they weren’t just short of passing out. Most animals weren’t made to run for such long durations of time, America reminded himself, and coupled with morphing fatigue, if they all survived until morning, they would all sleep for at least a day.

In front of them was the Arlington memorial bridge, passing right over the Potomac River. This was their stop.

Dodging several more panicked civilians and cars, the group barely hesitated as they all plunged face first into the freezing water with long leaps, most of them ending up several dozen feet away from the shore.

The ice cold water almost numbed America upon contact, but he struggled to keep afloat. He was thankful that his heavy body knew how to swim, as his little hooves started paddling, farther and farther away from the shore.

<Everyone, demorph under and stay under! Only come above for air! We can’t risk being seen by the officers,> Germany yelled.

America closed his eyes and took one last breath before praying to every single deity out there that he wouldn't drown in the process of demorphing. Soon enough, he was imagining his usual human-nation self, with human limbs and human skin and a human head. He felt himself shrinking, his fur disappearing, and also quite unfortunately the cold water making direct contact with his very, very unfortunately bare skin, and filling up his nostrils.

America paddled to the surface where he exploded from the water, took a deep gulp of air, then sunk back under the waves to try to remain hidden. He opened his eyes, and, ignoring the sting of the cold river water, could barely make out the forms of the others, similarly treading water besides him.

America felt much lighter, and a sense of confusion overcame him. It seemed like he was forgetting something.

His brain screamed it out for him.

_THE CONTROLLER! WHERE IS THE UNCONSCIOUS MAN!?_

America looked around frantically. Had the man slid off his back when he leapt into the water? Oh no, what if the police had found him? That was when his eyes settled upon the slowly sinking figure of a man deep in the murky depths. America looked down, hesitated for barely a second, and began diving.

When he made contact with the figure, he thanked his lucky stars (as well as all the deities he had prayed to earlier) that he was unusually strong, and with several tugs, had the man towing behind him as he made his way to the surface.

America chanced a peek above the water. What he found was the police searching along the shoreline, their flashlights sweeping up and down the water’s edge, though thankfully they were moving away from his group. They must have been confused when they saw the animals they had been chasing disappear near the edge of the river.

Perhaps the group had some time to swim to safety and escape.

Just as America was about to go try to retrieve his friends, a faint thought-speak voice suddenly overwhelmed his mind, despite the low volume.

<Swim to the other shore. I’ve gotten a car and am waiting.>

The voice was unmistakably Russia’s. But America still couldn’t help but note the tone of ominous intent in that voice.

Well, it wasn’t like he really had a choice. He couldn’t tread water forever, and the others were surely to be more exhausted than even him. And it seemed that they had already made up their minds anyway. America could barely make out their forms, most of them swimming in the breaststroke style towards the location Russia had chosen.

It took nearly ten minutes to get there, and America was truly beginning to lose feeling in his limbs. He was probably going to die of hypothermia as soon as he got out of the water. But he continued, dragging along the unconscious man, and finally, upon reaching the shore, quietly lifted himself out of the water. The cold air hit him and immediately every single inch of his skin went numb. He tried moving his fingers and found that he couldn’t. Plus he was also naked. Great.

There was the sound of screeching tires. Then, a car pulled up directly two feet in front of him, barely stopping in time.

Behind America, the others groaned as they dragged themselves out of the cold Potomac.

The door opened, and there was Russia, wrapped in a beach towel and scarf but otherwise stark naked, sitting at the driver’s wheel.

“Get in, bitches.”

 

* * *

 

And that is the story of how America ended up crammed into the back of an SUV with exactly seven other nations, all of which could barely fit in the backseat of an SUV, with the exception of Russia, who was driving, and Prussia, who had the foresight to have gotten shotgun before anyone else.

For the rest of the nations, though, everything sucked.

_Everything._

First of all, there was no heating. Russia claimed that the heating and air conditioning were broken. America highly doubted that was true, but then again, he had no idea where Russia had managed to find an empty SUV and chances were it was broken in some places.

Second of all, everyone, and America really meant _everyone_ , was soaking wet.

Oh, and did he mention that everyone was also _naked_?

The only thing on America’s mind was anger towards Tony and the inventor of the morphing technology for not also inventing some kind of side effect that would automatically clothe the morpher in clothes when going back into human form. Because if America had to deal with being naked in all his future battles with the Yeerks, he would lose all his morale within the first few months.

Actually, there was another thing on America’s mind besides his anger.

It was raging embarrassment from being so very, very close to all of the other nations, particularly England, especially since they were all naked. This had to be one of the more awkward situations of his lifetime.

Scratch that.

This was _the most_ awkward situation America had ever been in in his entire life, and that was really saying something.

For example, France was being very insensitive and spreading out all his limbs as much as he could, thereby taking up over a quarter of the backseat space. He also seemed super nonchalant about the whole thing, and didn’t so much as blink in discomfort. On the other hand, Germany, who was unfortunately next to him, has his eyes squeezed shut and looked like he wanted to die. Italy was next to Germany, and looked generally fine, with the exception of his uncontrollable shivering. Next to Italy was China, who also looked so embarrassed he wanted to die. Then there was Canada, who was on America’s left and was crammed into the window. America almost felt bad for him. And hovering/standing somewhere in the space between the front and the back was Japan, who _also_ looked like he wanted to die, and was trying to avoid eye contact with everyone.

Oh, and there was also the unconscious Controller in a suit they had haphazardly thrown into the trunk. But he didn’t really matter.

America had forgotten to mention that he was sitting next to none other than England, who was directly to his right, spine as stiff as a board, completely unmoving, and also horribly flushed. England _also_ happened to look like he wanted to die, and was beginning to pass on the same thoughts to America, who himself flushed whenever the van drove over a bump and caused their thighs or arms to rub together.

Either way, every single inch of America’s skin that was touching England’s felt like it was on fire.

Worst of all, England had his hands covering his face, reducing all the possibility of America talking to him, laughing, and brushing the contact off to minimize the mutual embarrassment to nothing. Now America was stuck with only one option: avoiding eye contact with anyone. And that meant either looking down at his shoeless feet, or looking over at England.

For some reason, his mind chose the latter.

The dark of night enclosed most of the car in shadows, so America knew it was safe to say that no one saw him staring -- because that was what he was doing. Somewhere in between climbing out of water and sitting in the van, England had fallen asleep, and his hands had slid away from his face. America couldn’t really blame him; the fight had been exhausting.

Passing streetlights and signs illuminated sections of England’s face. America paid extra attention to his relaxed brows, his fluttering lashes, his pale cheek, the strands of thin blond hair spread over his ear…

Although America was still pretty cold, exhaustion began overwhelming him as well. Call him a child to fall asleep in a car ride home after an exciting adventure, but he was seriously tired. Tony hadn’t said anything about morphing being this exhausting. America was going to have to write this new discovery down in the books.

Without any further thoughts, his eyelids had fluttered shut, and gradually, gradually, his head settled onto England’s shoulder.

The van drove on, undisturbed by confused police and animal control trucks and their flashlights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that took longer than usual. As always, I'm super busy around this time of year, and it looks like I'll only be getting busier as the year goes on. Don't expect updates more frequent than maybe once a month (or once every three weeks if you're lucky). But chances are I have a long line of independent fics and oneshots lined up for publication on my account, so even if this fic isn't updated you'll have other stuff to read to tide you over. As always, thanks for reading!
> 
> I would totally appreciate it if you comment. Just saying.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out [my tumblr!](http://cosmicconundrum.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://cosmicconundrum.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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